The Center Punch

Mars Needs Newt?

2012-02-02T16:04:00.000-08:00

Very much ado has been made of Newt Gingrich's recent assertion that we should reinvigorate our space program to the extent of establishing a moon base and perhaps mount expeditions to Mars. Discounting the sneery snark of both liberal and conservative planetary isolationists more sober precincts are exploring the merits of such a proposal.

The most obvious ointment bound fly is the cost. Establishing a viable moon base would more than likely involve monies the equivalent of, or probably even greater than, the 175 billion bucks (inflation adjusted) of the Apollo program. In an age of truly insane budget deficits such a program really does appear to be, well, insane. The numbers have been run a thousand times and with anything remotely resembling current technology the costs of such an effort are wildly beyond anything any forseeable congress will ever tolerate. It all comes down to dollars per pound to orbit. Using the most sophisticated heavy lifter technology available the numbers just don't add up, to put it as mildly as possible.

Even the sundry nascent private space exploration efforts, amounting to really only stunts at present, have little chance of driving down costs to levels that will ever make any remote economic sense. We appear to be stuck. Stuck on Earth's surface that is. My personal feeling is that we will remain stuck for probably at least a century. This of course is in the category of a wild-ass guess, could take somewhat less time, and could well take two or three times as long as a century.

Two central conundra confront us. The first is getting bulk materials to orbit at a cost that is a least three orders of magnitude less than that is possible or foreseen in the next several decades. Lifting the many thousands of tons to orbit required by moon base building or a Mars expedition by means of chemical reaction rockets is simply out of the question as a long term solution. This leaves what? Well it leaves exactly one thing and that is the much vaunted space elevator that will mechanically transfer material to orbit for, supposedly, a very tiny fraction of the costs that conventional rocketry can manage.

The slang term for such a structure is the Beanstalk. The primary stumbling block for such a structure is usually taken to be the strength of the fibers used to build it which will need to be far greater than anything we have now or promise to have this century barring some truly monumental discovery--so monumental that its discovery will amount to a real life deus-ex-machina. In other words it will take a miracle. For the purposes of discussion let us postulate that such hyper-strength materials can be fabricated, and somehow made affordable. This is merely the beginning. The engineering challenges will be stupefying difficult and fabulously expensive. The costs of building such a structure could easily exceed several hundred billion dollars. We are talking about deploying millions of tons of ultra high-tech materials and hardware on an unprecedented scale with unprecedented problems guaranteed to rear their heads before the project is finished. With such vast quantities of complex materials and huge heavy devices economies of scale will only take us so far.

Vast amounts of electrical energy will be required to power the vehicles which would ply this mega-tower, some of which can be recovered to be sure, but nevertheless the equivalent of several large nuclear powerplant's worth of generating capacity would be required at the base of the stalk. Unknown dynamic resonance effects will crop up as the immense stucture ascends (and descends at the same time) and will continue to crop up after the structure is finished. Problems of NIMBYism, terrorism, and equatorical political factors will plaque the builders. Monies will aways be in short supply with the required coalitions of national finances subject as they always are to interruptions, turf wars and political battles. As in the case of advanced fighter aircraft the project's gestation will be long enough for technological obsolescence to be a major thorn in the side of project management.

Before the project is finished hundreds of billions of dollars worth of conventional heavy lift capability will be needed to facilitate construction on the orbital terminus of the stalk. After what is likely to be a quarter century of construction the amount of energy to deliver a pound to orbit will indeed be a small fraction of what it is now but the build costs, probably exceeding well over a trillion dollars, will have to be amortized over each and every pound delivered to orbit for decades to come during which time there will no doubt be many billions of dollars of cost required to maintain and upgrade the structure. Consequently the cost to orbit will still be many thousands of dollars per pound which although much cheaper than now is still a stiff tab to pay. The beanstalk concept, although promising, is far from a financial panacea.

This brings us to conundrum two. Once we get that material to orbit then what? There we'll be all dressed up with nowhere to go because we will still be dependent on conventional rocketry to get where we want to go in the solar system. We will not, repeat not be able to cost effectively explore the solar system with conventional rockets. The costs and time frames are simply far too prohibitive. With conventional rockets we would still need months to get to Mars and years to get to Jupiter and Saturn with severe contraints in terms of the supplies needed for such long journeys and the sundry human factors that will remain as intractable as they do now.

Nuclear powered rockets are touted as the best hope for cutting this knot. A vehicle under one continuous gee of thrust would only need a few weeks to get to Jupiter, including turnaround and deceleration into Jovian orbit. Trouble is we do not yet have a clue, despite much research, on how we will ever build such rockets. All the projects to date envision devices that, although continuous, provide very small amounts of thrust. This would be an improvement over the massive fuel consuming burns of conventional rockets but the transit times will still be in the area of many months, at a minimum. Such low thrust scenarios could make a Mars expediton more viable than at present, somewhat, but transits to the outer planets are entirely another matter. The low continuous thrust scenario could well be a cheaper route but it will not be a particularly speedier one.

To properly address these stony problems will require truly stupendous leaps in the materials and power handling sciences--leaps that will dwarf what we have already achieved--and we have achieved a very great deal. To build a space elevator we will need materials that make the very strongest carbon nanotube based fibers we can manage currently seem like overdone spaghetti. To build nuclear powered rockets that will continuously develop tons of thrust over long periods will require both materials performance and power densities that make the most efficient rocket engines yet devised look like a child's holiday sparkler. It is going to be really really frakin' HARD to achieve all this. It is very possible that we could be in Star Trek territory, beyond the 24th century, before we get a real handle on these bizarrely difficult challenges. It is in fact possible that we might develop a true FTL spacecraft drive before we ever figure out how to get a pound of stuff to Earth orbit at a reasonable cost.

The big problem is that mere incrementalism is not likely to bear the fruit we want. Slightly ever greater efficiencies in heavy lift capability and marginally ever more powerful and compact drive technologies are not going to get us there because costs are bound to remain a severely hobbling factor. We are beyond baby steps. What we need are true technological seven-league boots. At this point we have not the faintest idea what such boots will look like.

This is a hard pill to swallow for enthusiasts of space exploration, as am I, but there simply will not be any cheap easy road to the planets let alone the stars. And since our publicly funded space programs are essentially jobs programs that will at best tolerate a timid incremental approach we will be making little progress in the decades to come. I fear that Newt-like boosterism, even if it inexplicably infects the general public, will make little difference in the long run.

The Manhattan Project and the Apollo program required a reordering of industrial focus and the injection of vast amounts of cash to achieve what they did but both achieved their objectives with essentially what technology was available, or envisionable, at the time. All it took was will and money, a lot of each to be sure. It's going to take both of those to achieve a true interplanetary spaceflight capability but it is also going to require technological leaps the likes of which we can simply can not imagine at this time. The state motto of Kansas is instructive--Ad Astra Per Aspera--to the stars with difficulty. Brother they ain't kiddin'.

Altar Man

2011-11-12T08:59:00.000-08:00

It is, truly, amazing how completely hobbled by ideology the current administration seems to be and how much political capital is being sacrificed on the altar of climate change activism. The lastest example is the admin's decision to kick the decision on the Keystone pipeline project down the road past next year's election. Actually in this case being a slave to climate change ideology is the most charitable thing one can say about the decision. The least charitable interpretation is that the O is a craven calculating politically partisan hack of stupendous proportions.

Since the second choice is so hideously ugly let us assume that first choice of environmentalist ideology drives the decision. Wait a sec. I just realized that the decision really services both imperatives at once. The environmental left, and whatever slice of the Democratic base cheers the decision, will be at least somewhat mollified and perhaps will rouse themselves in numbers sufficient to aid Obama's re-election bid. The rest of the base will at least not strongly disapprove of the decision enough to convince anyone to switch parties, a very low probability in any case.

So even if the decision is largely political calculation it serendipitously accords very nicely with the administration's steel reinforced rock-ribbed refusal to do anything in its power that can be seen as encouraging the use of any fossil fuel, anywhere anytime. The environmental left and the Progressive political class have at last entirely and indistinguishably melded into one. Progressivism therefore is intractable reflexive environmentalism at least as much as it is anything else. It is exceedingly hard to imagine anyone with spotless Progressive political credentials as having even a neutral, let alone positive, attitude on the subject of increased or continued use of hydrocarbon based fuels. My guess is that the total number of such individuals in this country couldn't decide the election of a schoolboard member in Flyspeck, Alabama Pop. 28.

It has become far past obvious that the environmental left simply does not in the least care, at all, if the economies of the industrialized world are permanently savaged in the relentless push toward a Valhalla of renewable green fabulosity. The fringe of this fringe insanely views this destruction as a sterling feature of the push and not a lamentable bug in the program. Man is a plague upon the Earth don't 'cha know and the fewer of us, with consequent lowered stress on the biosphere, is only to be appauded regardless of the casualties, economic or human.

The increasingly obvious deleterious economic effects of heedless green spending appear to matter not one teeny-weeny bit to climate-change nabobs. They are undoubtedly livid that pushback against this hoped for impoverishment is increasing in the largest chunk of the body politic which can best be described as the Non-Insane Community. The plan of the eviro-left to willy-nilly convert the world into a a leaky ship of their foolishness is beginning to run aground on the reefs of economic viability. It's much to early to say that the enviro-left is running out of, er, gas but this just might mean that the likelihood of fierce rear-guard actions will increase. Such a characterization fits perfectly with the Keystone decision. With the decision to make no decision the administration may be hoping that either one of two scenarios will play out.

The first scenario is that if Obama is re-elected then the decision can safely languish and the can kicked further on down the road past 2016. The second scenario is that if Obama is not re-elected, and the new White House occupant approves the pipeline project, then the environmental left will be presented with a perfect opportunity to do what it does best which is to ululate in turbocharged high dudgeon about the grotesque irresponsibility of conservatives who "want" to kill the planet. Also the opportunities for mediagenic activist protests against the pipline will increase to very satisfying, and money raising, levels. So win-win on this one but either contemplated scenario only reinforces the impression that economic heedlessness is endemic in the "movement".

Something else, which is an irony of supernova proportions, is the fact that the headlong pursuit of stunningly expensive "renewable" energy will most adversely affect those alleged darlings of the Progressive political class--the working stiff. Now though those stiffs, who make up most of the trade unions, are starting to get a clue so one might think that consideration for lower income workers would help ameliorate a consequences be damned rise in energy prices. Please to think again. Presumably unions are so deep in the bag of the Democratic party that they can be flayed economically without serious consequence. This fact may well be why the administration's quasi and extra-legal attempts to strengthen unions are taking place. Give with one hand and take with the other. Situation neutralized.

Now though, with the cronyism and financial ineptitude of the greens as exemplified by such as, but certainly not limited to, Solyndra becoming too blatant even for many stalwart unionists, it should be possible for the GOP to cut a goodly number of disenchanted steers out the union herd. The possibility of fracturing the union vote should terrify Progressives but bound hands and feet to the environmental left as they have become they simply may just not care.

The Keystone decision delay is therefore a political high wire act requiring a very specific set of dominoes to obediently topple in the correct direction. Worthy of insertion at this point is the hoary cliched response of UK PM Harold MacMillan who, when asked what he most feared most, replied, "Events dear boy, events." Progressives seem not to be able to seriously understand that for their grand plans a worldwide financial meltdown could accurately be characterized as an "event" that might spectacularly explode those plans.

The E-Bridget

2011-10-20T16:51:00.000-07:00

Review of The E-Bridget concept from U.S.A. Motors.
By Dennis Mac Luggage
Car and Track Trends Magazine
December 2013

Sonny Sanderson, CEO of U.S.A. Motors has unquestionably been gratified by the sales of the Bridget roadster which stand at around 10,000 units in the last year and a half. This is very healthy volume for such a niche vehicle but if the economy were not still in the throes of recovery then the figure would likely be higher. S'ok though because the volume is fairly closely matched to the small factory's capacity and quality of the sweet little ride has not suffered and in fact gripes & gremlins have been in very short suppyl. This is most likely due to the car's simplicity, many fewer things to go wrong, and who couldn't love that? The firm is profitable as well which is an extreme rarity in the niche market.

Much of this no doubt must be laid at the feet of U.S.A. Motor's not reinventing the wheel, keeping the vehicle as simple as possible, pitching the car as the sum of its humdrum components, and keeping development costs within the bounds of sanity. 10,000 units would be counted as complete failure for a full line manufacturer but the likes of Tesla would swoon over such numbers. In fact the 100 mil. that Sonny Sanderson spent in getting the Bridget to market, starting from scratch, is less than, by a factor of about thirty, what Tesla has spent on getting its two models to a sales level a tiny percentage of that enjoyed by the cheery uber-Spridget.

Early this year Sanderson and his merry little band of engineers trotted out the Hy-Bridget which was a suitably minimal hybrid version of the roadster. The car worked, quite well if we're any judge, but U.S.A. decided that however well it worked it just did not fit into their one car lineup. The selling price of the Hy-Bridget would have had to have been at least $5000 higher than the fifteen grand tab of the standard Bridget and it wasn't a bit more fun to drive and fun after all is the object of the whole exercise.

The standard Bridget easily gets 40mpg out on the slab and although this figure is becoming much more common every other make uses great heaping helpings of expensive high-tech to accomplish it. An ultra-tech direct-injected turbo motor combined with an advanced 6-8 speed trans may be many things but simple it surely is not. One might say that, except in the fun category, U.S.A. has set low expectations for its product and has met those expectations perfectly.

The latest Bridget versions show evidence of very minor fiddling about the edges of its performance envelope but the looks, price, and functionality have changed not a bit. Yet Sanderson and his engineers are not resting on their laurels completely and so have given forth with another concept on the heels of the Hy-Bridget, the E-Bridget. "We did it" says Sanderson, "because we could." Also because, we're sure, that it did not require vast wads of cash to accomplish.

One thing pure electric vehicles are not usually characterized by is light weight. The Mitsubishi i, still on the market despite two years of very lackluster sales, weighs twice what a Bridget does. In fact no pure EV or hybrid squeaking below the 3000 pound limit comes to mind. Since the main enemy at U.S.A. is weight then the onus on the engineering team was to make a simple pure electric vehicle that did not outweigh its IC powered brethren.

Towards that end the relatively pricey wheel motors from the Hy-Bridget were retained. For that matter the E-Bridget is built on the same mule chassis as the hybrid, waste not don't 'cha know. The IC engine/generator combo was yanked out, as was the small supercap that distinguished the hybrid. In their place was deposited an 8kwh lithium polymer battery crafted, not to some mileage objective, but rather to closely match the weight of the removed components. Thusly the E-Bridget weighs within a few pounds of a standard roadster. Atop this battery sits the car's power electronics, also suitably sized. Total battery/electronics weight is in the neighborhood of 300 pounds.

This is on the small side by pure EV standards but of course the Bridget itself is aburdly light by any standard at all so even though the battery weighs quite a bit less than what the one in a Volt its range is fifty percent higher. Sanderson claims a 60 mile real world range for the E-Bridget with a top speed of 80mph. We've not been given a chance to drive the vehicle but we've little reason to doubt Sanderson since our horseback guess, given the battery size and 25hp each wheel motors, is right in line with his claims. Claimed full recharge time, 120 volts only, is ten hours.

Since weight has been kept under control we'd expect the fun factor of an E-Bridget to nearly equal that of a standard roadster--minus the lovely feel of its perfect 5-speed trans. So the fun factor and the weight factor is well in hand but the price factor is another matter entire. Even in quantity the battery used would likely cost five or six thousand dollars and this would shoot the price of the vehicle up by that much at a minimum and probably a good deal more since high power battery management systems are far from cheap.

Sorenson claims, and here again he's almost certainly right, that an E-Bridget would have to sell for at least 25 thousand dollars and any profit at that price would be elusive. Plus now that the heavy federal subsidies for pure electrics have disappeared the market for such a beastie would be even more elusive. And so although the operation was a success the patient will be allowed to expire. No E and no Hy-Bridget will grace a showroom floor in any foreseeable future.

Perhaps it is for the best. Our darling little Bridget needs no excuses, no broadening product line, no justifications for its existence. The Simple Simon of the automotive world is complete and perfect as it stands. The Bridget is one of the great car bargains, greatest bargains period, and any real attempts to position it within the wildly complex greater automotive zeitgeist is extremely misquided.

So Sonny says they did it "because we could" but as he wisely knows this reason is simply far too insufficient to bet his corporate finances on whatever passing trendiness is being chased in the escalating techological fever of the greater automotive world. Let it be Sonny. Let it be.

Are You Experienced?

2011-10-15T12:54:00.001-07:00

Presidential candidate Herman Cain is lamented by sundry current pundits as being too inexperienced for national office. That is to say, aside from a failed senatorial primary bid, he has no political experience at all. This is considered a dire defect by the conservative chattering classes presumably because the country's experiment with an individual with a dearth of experience has proven so unsalutary and a lack thereof may be viewed with alarm by the Blessed Independents whose support is always presumed to be entirely crucial to a pres. candidate's ultimate success.

The problem with this line of thinking is that although the present Oval Office tenant may be deemed to have had insufficient political experience a far larger issue is that the current tenant had no experience whatsoever in the field of practical and effective economics, to put it as mildly as possible. It's worse than that really. The One not only had no serious economic experience but he, and most of his cheerleaders, futher presumed that a Niagra of government spending, er excuse me, investment, just had to be the ticket back to economic prosperity.

Not--so--much.

Leads one to think that conventional political experience is firmly on the overrated side. Political experience, for all its vaunted importance ever and always drags along baggage much of which frequently has to be overcome rather than trumpeted. Mitt Romney is a current case in point along with Rick Perry to rather a lesser degree. In any case political experience, i.e. a feel for the log-rolling and glad-handing of congress critters is something that can be bought. Bought in the sense that a president can surround himself with a staff whose talents run in those directions whilst he referees the shoving matches and tries to keep the policy train on its tracks.

It is also odd for anyone to think that the experience of several decades of high level business dealings would involve no politiking. Anyone ever hear of office politics? It can be and often is a frothing snakepit the equal of the national legislatures and requiring the sort of talent of the principals that can only be described as political in nature. By this measure ol' Herm has about as much of that kind of experience as any man standing. As much as anyone, and likely far more than anyone else mired in the GOP primary swamp let alone the current big chair occupant, Cain has the experience, the feel, for practical economics that is desperately needed at the moment.

Regarding Cain's 999 plan it is naturally being attacked by the usual Progressive and leftist suspects but also by most of the GOP primary field as well. A thoroughly Progressive friend has observed that at least Cain actually has a plan which describes no one else in the running. All other candidates, being more or less experienced political animals, know instinctively that once one puts forth any putative plan it will immediately be mercilessly picked apart by one and all other political animals. It would be nice if the critics were offering firm debatable concrete ideas of their own instead of a steady rain of kvetching about how the current system of taxation is unfair and misused. As intimated above the political animal "knows" that in specificity lies danger and so avoid it if they can.

The closest anyone else comes to specifics is Newt Gingrich with his 6-Sigma presentations and, tantalizingly, he is showing unexpected strengths in the polls as of this writing. Newt however, much as I personally admire him, has as big a political baggage train to pull as anyone and is therefore unfortunately hamstrung by it to a considerable degree. Only Cain can claim the mantle of citizen candidate at this time since he has heretofore been "only" a citizen. I and an increasing number of others consider this, as they say in the software trade, a feature and not a bug of Cain's campaign.

Angling a bit off camber from the above discussion I am struck by the notion that a presidential contest between Obama and Herman Cain would well and truly be the very first post racial national contest. In my fevered mind only a race between a black avowed hard-core Progressive and a black with undeniable conservative credentials would set to rest once and for all the idea that African-Americans have insufficient access to the halls of power. Additionally the blithering useful idiots of the left are going to get little traction accusing Cain of being insufficiently black for their tastes. The nitwit parade currently painting Cain as a "Tom" or a "token" better be prepared to endure heaps of deserved ridicule, and a possible well deserved fat lip from the candidate himself.

Taking Lumps

2011-09-29T19:58:00.000-07:00

Much ado has been made of N.C. Governor Bev. Perdue's statement about wanting to suspend congressional elections for two years. The tale of the tape revealed that the statement showed little evidence that it was a joke, hyperbole, or sarcasm as was variously claimed. Some circles have divined a number of things up to and including a certain National-Socialist ring to the statement, an exxageration surely, but it does betray a another certain tendency abroad in Progressive circles to wistfully long for a "wise authoritarian" to cut through the messiness of politics so that that the really important things can just get the heck done already.

Being Progressives this naturally means things that Progressives would like to see happen but are having a hard time selling to more than a minority of the electorate. These things comprise a long laundry list which is pointless to recount here but I think that at the least this wistfulness betrays a deep-seated dissatisfaction with the normal chaotic workings of the democratic process. The 900 pound gorilla on that laundry list is of course the "saving" of the planetary environment. This cause is viewed by some as so utterly paramount that mere niggling considerations of consensual governance should be subordinated to it--whatever the cost. Thus emerges the dreamy notion of the wise authoritarian or intelligent strongman who might take charge and steamroll over the naysayers and foot-draggers.

Progressives can not really point out any current exemplar of such a wise authoritarian, the current lot being such a parade of thuggish sleazeballs, but surely there must be someone out there who might fit the bill. Absent from these yearnings is an apparent lack of cognizance of the hoary adage that "absolute power corrupts absolutely". Unfortunately this adage has a predictive track record of exactly 100 percent and there is not the slightest indication that this record will not continue thusly for, well, ever.

These authoritarian yearnings are inchoate and diffuse to the extent that if pressed Progressives may backpedal and admit that no such personage exists but if they think the thought at all then perforce they must believe that such could exist and most certainly should exist. That the historical record entirely fails to supports such notions is deemed an irrelevancy since the modern academy, with its presumed salutary and consciousness expanding diversity, supposedly has produced an enlightened cadre possessed of vasty reams of "settled" scientific knowledge, a luminous perspicacity, and an honorable intent heretofore undisplayed by our learning benighted forbears. Seen though the gimlet eye of history perhaps this line of thought should be characterized less as wistful yearning and more as, to put it as charitably as possible, blinkered self-aggrandizement

Some call these notions an au-courant manifestation of what is called the "totalitarian impulse" but understandably current Progressives recoil from this. Recoil as it may the self-styled "reality-based community" does not appear to recognize that to achieve their goals supra-politically would require not a wise authoritatian but rather a massively repressive absolute dictatorship which would have no truck with another evergreen Progressive touchstone--dissent. The deep and crushing level of social control required to advance the grand overarching green agenda with no naysaying backtalk would make the depredations of Adolf, Mao, and Stalin look like the smugly feckless edicts of Nanny Bloomberg.

This attitude, however sighingly wistful and unrealistic it might be, does I think tend to inform and strengthen the enthusiasm of the Progressive political class for the next best thing to a wise authoritarianism which is a steady and gradual usurpation of the freedom of action by the lowly messy recalcitrant "people". If a creeping Federalism abetted by similarly inclined regulatory agencies can eventually achieve all that Progressives yearn for then that will just have to do. That is an achievable goal and much "progress" has been made in the last few years.

A pity then that the nasty hateful racist fascist reactionary idiotic conservatives have fully twigged to the scam and are ferociously pushing back. How dare they think that there is any issue more important than "Saving The Planet"! What boobs, what clueless dimwits, what knuckledragging bog-stompers, what heartless vicious defilers of the biosphere these conservatives must be to not promptly and graciously assent to such a manifestly unassailable high nobility of purpose. This puppy-dog rollover has failed to manifest itself however and thus Progressive frustration with the alledgely inefficient and unresponsive democratic process slips out occasionally in the form of such as Perdue's cri-de-coeur.

An additional pity, although obviously not from where I stand, is that these cries of the heart are liable to come more frequently as the conservative pushback accelerates against the truly insane and economically suicidal costs, in every metric, of a wildly hubristic planet saving campaign. The brainless lumpen-proles are beginning to ever more resist climbing on board for a multi-zillion dollar planet saving and freedom abrogating boatride, selfish swine that they are, and the elite un-lumpen may just have to, uh, lump it.

Low On Meth

2011-09-17T14:35:00.001-07:00

There's been a fair amount of press and bloggy argle-bargle lately about using methanol as an auto fuel. The primary alleged advantage of methanol, as opposed to its chemical cousin ethanol, is that is can be made reasonably cheaply from not only any hydrocarbon source such as coal or natural gas but also that it can be made reasonably cheaply from a wide variey of biomass sources. Divorced from these issues is the fact that methanol has many of the same operational problems that ethanol does. It is highly corrosive, manageable, low in energy content, somewhat less manageable, has cold start problems equal to or worse than ethanol, manageable so far only when combined with gasoline, is even more hydrophilic than ethanol, expensively manageable, and has engine wear problems similar to ethanol, more expensively manageable yet.

Author Robert Zubrin is one of the principal interweb and print cheerleaders for the adoption of methanol as one of our principle fuel choices. His enthusiasm is palpable and his analyses superficially clearheaded but he tends to paper over, as so many alternative fuel enthusiasts do, the significant economic and operational roadblocks presented by these alternatives. Whatever the technical issues are, solvable or not, he and most all other alt-fuel boosters fall prey to the tendency to severly underestimate the various production economic factors as well as the very high infrastructure costs of such adoptions.

Let us consider ethanol which without both massive government coercion on the distribution end and scandalously large subsidies on the manufacturing end would be only a minor corn belt curiosity and play far less a roll than even the small one it does now. The forced adoption of ethanol blended fuels, from the 10-15% ethanol levels in "normal" gasoline to the 85% ethanol/15% gasoline blend known as E85 has always been, and continues to be very near a 100% political enterprise which is entirely divorced from anything resembling normal market factors.

Several decades ago ethanol first gained traction as a way to "oxygenate" gasoline fuels so that they might be less polluting. At first it was only used in areas especially sensitive to the concentration of automotive exhaust such as some areas of the mountain states and of course southern California. This effort may well have had some salutary results when vehicles were still in the carburetor/pre-computer era but things have changed radically in those decades. Now new vehicle exhausts are so incredibly clean that they are significantly past the point of diminishing returns in a technical sense although they are are still relentlessly painted as vile crud spewing monstrosities by anti-pollution zealots.

As this level of cleanliness was being rapidly approached in the last two decades those of a zealous bent found that a new cudgel with which to bash car emissions came conveniently along in the form of a vehicle's "carbon footprint". For the green zealot the only tolerable carbon footprint is zero point zero, that is to say no detectable carbon output whatsoever. Now when new vehicles are compared to their pre-computer ancestors it is easily seen that their carbon feetprints have declined in tandem with large reductions of conventional pollutants while exhibiting large increases in fuel efficiency.

In the current "climate" of global-warming zealotry the fact that new vehicles are amazingly clean devices cuts no ice whatever if they continue to irresponsibly "spew" any sort of carbon compound into the air, regardless of how low that level actually is. The big bad actor is of course carbon dioxide which is unavoidably produced by the combustion of any hydrocarbon product and being a particularly unreactive compound is stupefyingly difficult to catalytically convert to anything less harmful unlike the bugbear of previous eras, carbon monoxide. Reducing CO levels to the near vanishing point proved difficult but possible however that has not been the case with CO2. However vanishingly low CO2 emissions may become, largely as a consequece of increasing fuel efficiency, it will be extraordinarily difficult, read expensive, if not actually impossible to reduce to the zealot preferred level of zero.

As a consequence of this new ideological imperative ethanol morphed from an adjunct to conventional pollution control strategies into a welcome vessel of carbon friendliness since it is a lower carbon containing compound than gasoline. Thus began the push towards high percentage ethanol blends as a way to not only reduce carbon emissions but also to service another dubious ideological imperative, energy "independence". As it has turned out it services the reduction of carbon emissions poorly since modern engines are already fantastically clean and efficient and since ethanol has turned out to require, in even the most optimistic assessments, as much energy to manufacture as it can deliver to an engine the independendence angle has proved to be chimerical as well. In the least optimistic assessments ethanol is deemed to be strongly negative regarding its BTU out to BTU in numbers.

Mr. Zubrin seems convinced that the adoption of methanol can overcome at least some of the principle problems of ethanol. It's true that methanol can be produced from a much wider variety of sources but equally true that hydrocarbon feedstocks inevitably will prove more economically viable than biomass. Zubrin maintains that methanol can be currently produced from natural gas at about $1.38 per gallon which compares favorably to gasoline considering the fact that methanol has about half the energy per gallon. This is a plainly fallacious line of argument. If methanol were to be produced in the vastly greater amounts needed for any serious penetration of the motor fuels market its price would inevitably rise and price pressure would subsequently mount on its feedstocks thereby worsening any comparisons. Further if methanol production increased enough to adequately service the motor fuel market it inevitably would become a globalized commodity subject to the vicissitudes of the market and who can predict that?

The unstated, and likely unwarranted, assumption behind this putative pricing seems to be that gasoline pricing must ever continue its steady upward march thereby maintaining methanol's price equivalency. This is the sheerest of speculation at best and fuzzy-headed pipe-dreaming at worst. Even if that turned out to be true methanol pricing would, in the long term, move roughly in tandem with gasoline--Econ 101.

Moving along Zubrin seems to entirely neglect the infrastructure costs associated with wide-scale methanol adaptation. Currently E85 is very hard to find outside the corn belt and is hardly ubiquitous at the retail level even in those more psychologically friendly environs. Even in corn-friendly precincts fuel retailers much surely view with gimlet eyes the cost of adding yet another seriously costly tankage and piping system to their sales outlets.

Heading out into the nation at large the adoption of methanol would require this additional costly equipement on a large scale, which might well happen over time, but nationwide retailers would be no less averse to these expenditures than their midwest brethren. This is the chicken/egg conundrum of all alternative fuel projects and, so far, the only "solution" to this issue has been massive government subsidies and a level of coercion that would make the Cosa Nostra blush. Ethanol would disappear from the fuel market at a rapid pace since its "demand" is an artifact of huge subsidies and fuel blending regulations. It is not needed any more as a mitigator of conventional pollution and it is an actual drag on the total energy budget of the country so retailers and consumers alike would let go of the product with both hands in the absence of regulatory coercion and multi-billion dollar midwest agri-bribes.

Why methanol would not be subject to similar vicissitudes is left unadressed by its promoters is very likely because it would almost certainly be subject to most if not all of those same issues. These days since ethanol subsidies have acquired the status of economic joke at best and outright scam at worst it beggars belief that in this era of spending contraction that methanol would be extended a helping hand of similar magnitude. It might not need a hand nearly as big as ethanol but it would be foolish indeed to assume that the adoption of methanol would any more successful, in any metric, than that of its sister hydrocarbon. If methanol can find a way to stand on its own two low carbon tootsies then fine but if it finds it must grasp the dead hand of government coercion and/or lobby for market distorting subsidies and punitive tariffs then it will consign itself to irrelevancy in the long term.

As is currently being proven, with a vengeance in the case of the emerging Solyndra subsidy imbroglio, government is a grimly inept picker of economic and technological winners and for them to pick methanol to expensively chivvy along would a rank absurdity. Of course government specializes in rank absurdities lined up to the horizon but there is no discernable case to be made for adding methanol to that rent-seeking lineup.

Props To The O

2011-09-17T14:34:00.000-07:00

Credit where credit is due to the prez--a novelty in these precincts to be sure. Behold a passage from Obama's Excellent Twitter Adventure:

We’re still using the same models for space travel that we used with the Apollo program 30, 40 years ago. And so what we’ve said is, rather than keep on doing the same thing, let’s invest in basic research around new technologies that can get us places faster, allow human space flight to last longer.
And what you’re seeing now is NASA, I think, redefining its mission. And we’ve set a goal to let’s ultimately get to Mars. A good pit stop is an asteroid. I haven’t actually — we haven’t identified the actual asteroid yet, in case people are wondering. [Laughter.] But the point is, let’s start stretching the boundaries, so we’re not doing the same thing over and over again, but rather let’s start thinking about what’s the next horizon, what’s the next frontier out there.
But in order to do that, we’re actually going to need some technological breakthroughs that we don’t have yet. And what we can do is for some of this low-orbit stuff, some of the more routine space travel — obviously no space travel is routine, but it could become more routine over time — let’s allow the private sector to get in so that they can, for example, send these low-Earth-orbit vehicles into space, and we may be able to achieve a point in time where those of you who are just dying to go into space, you can buy a ticket, and a private carrier can potentially take you up there,while the government focuses on the big breakthroughs that require much larger investments and involve much greater risk.

Indeed and huzzah on all counts. Even the Progressive-in-Chief has grokked that the sclerotic centralized control of American space exploration by the horribly bloated NASA apparatus is way overdue for paradigm change. Unfortunately congress refuses to read the wall writing and has actually increased funding for the struggling, years behind, stupefyingly cost-overrun Space Launch System and the Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle both of which bid fair to make the billion dollar per launch Shuttle program look like a bargain. Getting out of the regulatory way of space privatization efforts is the only sane way forward. Such efforts are progressing very nicely right now but wariness of the heavy bureaucratic hand of the NASA space police should at a keen edge.

Smarty Pants

2011-04-30T09:13:00.000-07:00

Just how the heck, I ask myself on nearly a daily basis, did Barack Obama ever acquire his vaunted reputation as an exceptionally smart person? How did his vacuous gas-baggery, from his ward-heeler days to the present, ever convince anyone that he is an intellectual heavyweight deserving of praise for his clever "rhetoric"? Beats the heck out of me. I have seen bloody little evidence of it. He is virtually a complete economic illiterate, entirely unfamiliar with the nuances of technology, a clueless parroter of fatuous climate change puffery regarding all energy issues, incapable of mathematical rigor regarding any issue, significantly divorced from reality regarding the nature of the country's enemies--and its friends, uncritically not to mention smugly enamored of a farrago of redistributionist malarkies, a depressing ignoramus regarding the issues, technical and economic, confronted by the automotive industry, and so direly lacking in extemporaneous off-the-prompter speaking skills as to render such as Sarah Palin positively Churchillian by comparison.

Now all that drivel scrolling down the angled prompter screen could perhaps be laid at the feet of his speechwriters but all that would do is imply that he is too dumb to be that stupid. His addresses and "speeches" contain nothing ringing, nothing as clever as a Whoopi Goldberg throw-away crack, nothing remotely specific or un-triangulated, and betray an ignorance of the problems of that perennial darling of Progressives, the working man, so profound as to make Bonny Prince Charlie seem like Larry the Cable Guy.

Too harsh? Consider a recent statement in which he averred that if one has a vehicle getting eight miles per gallon then perhaps it is time for a trade-in. The most charitable comment possible on this statement is "easy for him to say". The least charitable comment would require so many euphemistic asterisks as to render it unintelligible. Where o where is the "smart" in all of this? Is it that he has a media neutral accent that in no way sounds southern? What bilge. Is it that his speaking voice has a certain facilely sonorous quality? What what? Are we supposed to be mesmerized by the allegedly comforting sound of his voice and ignore the content and implications of his words? Is it that he graduated from Hahvahd and ipso facto is therefore undeniably smart? Remind me again, from where was it that the reviled dunce George Bush graduated?

I suspect that the simplest explanation is that to much of the (insert obligatory sneer here) main stream media Progressives are much more to their innate political likings therefore that automatically makes them "smart" whereas anyone even a nanometer more conservative than Joe Lieberman must perforce be assumed to be less smart, a lot less. Only two words and an initial are needed to decisively prove this assumption as meritless as a fevered Birther rant--William F. Buckley.

Diesel Connie

2011-04-08T03:10:00.000-07:00

In my previous post I averred that even if a piston engined airliner were technically feasible that aircraft manufacturers would in no way be tempted to devote the billions in development costs required. I stand by the statement but for the purposes of discussion let's examine whether or not in actual reality such a beastie could in fact be built, and be a useful commercial venture.

First of let's not delude ourselves that any conceivable putative project could ever come close to duplicating the performance and passenger carrying capacity of a jumbo jet. Not going to happen. The engines on an Airbus 380 for example develop around an order of magnitude more power than the engines on the Lockheed Constellation and the likelihood of any internal combustion engine could be built to develop 30,000 horsepower and be remotely light enough to be used in aircraft is negligible, to put it as mildly as possible.

So let's take the ol' Connie as a baseline. There are regional airliners which can carry a hundred passengers or so in similar fashion to a fully loaded Constellation so the basic airframe engineering is already in hand. These craft by no look anything like a Connie due largely to advances in aerodynamics, which is a shame considering the sensuous beauty that was the Constellation, but it could not be otherwise. Let's propose parameters that would result in these hundred passengers be carried along at about 400mph airspeed at roughly 35,000 feet of altitude. This would give our putative project enough of an advantage over the Connie to pique the interest of airlines especially if significant fuel savings can be offered as well. I estimate that this performance would require four engines that develop at least 3000 horsepower each. This is less power than developed by the Connie's original 18 cylinder Wrights but I presume that a modern design with composite components would weigh several tons less.

The engines would have to weigh less as well which would be easy if gasoline were to be used as fuel. Unfortunately this approach would hardly achieve the fuel cost savings that would make this project attractive in the first place. That essentially leaves us with Diesel engines and not only that but Diesel engines that could run on the same fuel that jet turbines do--JP-4. Current Diesels have a hard time using jet fuel but it stretches not the imagination that units could be built from scratch that could use it to its fullest fuel saving potential. I don't view this approach as optional considering the costs of establishing a different fuel delivery infrastructure for an airliner running on conventional Diesel fuel.

So Diesels are it but they would not by a very long shot have any relationship to the growling smoky beasts of heavy over the road trucks. Automotive Diesel powerplants have made amazing strides in every facet of performance to the point where they are now the preferred engine in prototype LeMans competition cars from the likes of Audi and Peugeot. Powerful quiet and thrifty they have become as the technologies of electronic engine management systems and turbo/supercharging have advanced hugely in the last two decades.

Diesels do have another big advantage, similar to those huge Wright radials, in that they can easily be designed to run in RPM ranges that match up to the required rotational speeds of propellors thus avoiding heavy and power wasting gearing systems that plague the majority of automotive engines converted to aircraft use. The trick in designing such an engine would not be in arriving at either the desired running characteristics or lowered fuel consumption but rather designing a Diesel that would be both light enough and stout enough to function in its intended role. This will require as much in the way of lightweight alloys and materials as can be marshalled but since in no wise will such an engine cost any more than a jet turbine to manufacture this approach would be valid.

The lightest most efficient configuration of this engine will likely be a V12 of 2000-2500 cubic inches of displacement with at least two large exhaust driven turbochargers. This would require a very large and expensive aluminum or magnesium engine block casting but in the low volumes contemplated this cost should not be a show stopper. There are other configurations that might be considered but a V12 has enough enough advantages that it would inevitably shake out of most anyone's risk analysis calculations. A V12 is a very smooth running engine, obviously important in an airliner, and is likely the most efficient way to get the lightest powerplant needed to do the job without risking too many technological Hail Marys. Engines of this size and power go back at least as far as WWII and even though few large aero diesels have been built current tech seems up to the task.

A V12 configuration, water cooled of course, has another advantage over the big old Wrights on the Connie and that's aerodynamic drag. Those huge radials were highly refined for their day but they spent a lot of energy just pushing their bulks through the air. Aero drag from a properly cowled water-cooled V12 would likely be much less than half of what the original Connie's engines could manage. This lowered drag of course translates directly into performance and efficiency gains.

There's little reason that the full armamentarium of the modern engine designer could not be thrown at this project. High pressure direct fuel injection, multi-valve intake configurations, low friction internals, high-strength light weight components, advanced electronic engine management systems etc. etc. could easily combine, I think, to halve fuel consumption per seat mile compared to current turbine engines--even current turbo-prop versions. So all in all it seems that it could be done but it remains vanishingly unlikely that it will be done. The huge research costs involved, and the inevitable public acceptance issues, are virtually certain to stop this sort of enterprise in its tracks. Bit a shame perhaps when one contemplates what a 48 cylinder Diesel powered airliner might sound like on takeoff.

Fuelish Comparison

2011-03-25T16:26:00.000-07:00

There was an article a while back on the wonderful site Low-Tech Magazine that stated that only recently have jet airliners achieved fuel efficiencies comparable to the highly developed piston engine powered airliners of the 1950s. Examining the evidence this appears to be true,strictly speaking, but there are so many other considerations that any real operational comparisons are essentially meaningless.

The 50s airliner directly compared was the wonderful, and thoroughly beautiful, Lockheed Constellation. This needle-like beauty was the utter apotheosis of gasoline-fueled piston engined passenger aircraft. I'm old enough to have actually flown in one as a child and am grateful for the experience and as a now card-carrying old fart I am ever appreciative of the technology of simpler times. The Constellation was a technological tour de force for its time with a super sleek airframe, a quirky triple-finned tail, and was one of the first to offer non-stop service between the coasts. Its four engines were 18 cylinder Wrights producing over 3200 horsepower each which provided a cruise speed of a bit over 300 mph at 22,000 feet. It carried from 65 to about 100 passengers. It was the height of speed and luxury just before the dawn of the jet age.

The original jetliners in commercial service were huge leaps in performance and carrying capacity albeit at the cost of higher seat-mile fuel usage. Obviously fuel usage was a less important factor 60 years ago due to the much lower costs but there are a number of very important differences to remember. Firstly piston-engined airliners of the age used expensive high octane aviation gasoline as opposed to the far less costly kerosene based fuel used by jet aircraft. Jet fuel has several more advantages to consider. Kerosene based jet fuel contains significantly more energy per gallon compared to gasoline and it has a much higher resistance to vaporization at high altitudes. This both allowed transcontinental ranges, despite the greater amounts needed, for jetliners and abetted their ability to cruise at much higher altitudes. Cruising at such high altitudes greatly enhanced the ability of jetliners to attain ground speeds of some 200 mph greater than piston airliners which shortened trip times dramatically and also conferred the ability to fly over bad weather that piston airliners had to fly around.

Interestingly if jetliners were forced to cruise at altitudes similar to that of 50s era passenger airliners their speeds would not be much greater and their seat/mile fuel usage would be significantly worse. The ability to cruise in the thin air at 35,000 feet and above confers much, if not all, of the jetliners superiority performance-wise. Add to that fact the subsequent 50 plus years of jet turbine technological development and it's hardly a surprise that fuel-efficiency, in any measurable metric, is now the equal of such as the Constellation if not somewhat better. Throw in the same 50 years worth of development in the areas of aerodynamics and lightweight structural design and the jetliner's advantages become completely insurmountable.

Also noteworthy is the fact the huge turbo-compound multi-row radial piston engines of the pre-jet era were exceedingly complex devices requiring significantly more maintenance hours than modern turbofan jetliner powerplants. Modern jet engines are horrifically expensive to manufacture but their maintenance complexity is far less than commonly assumed.

Not to be ignored in the equation is that jetliners routinely carry multiples of the number of possible passengers on 50s airliners thus requiring far less time, and fewer aircraft, to deliver a given number of passengers to their destinations. Many small regional airliners routinely carry as many passengers as could embark on the Constellation and the comparisons become entirely absurd when considering the capacities of such behemoths as the massive Boeing 747 and the even larger Airbus 380. Another not inconsequential factor is that average ticket prices are now lower in actual dollar terms than in the 1950s and of course wildly cheaper when factoring in inflation. Longings for a bygone era of romantic air travel notwithstanding the advantages of the modern jetliner are so overwhelming that no possible prodigies of technological development could remotely result in even the highest tech version of a gasoline fueled piston powered aircraft matching a jet's performance and utility.

Theoretically I suppose it might be possible to design and build a kerosene (diesel) powered propeller driven airliner that could compete favorable with jetliners on seat/mile fuel usage but they would still fall well short in every other performance and utility metric. Plus the chances that any aircraft company would devote the billions in development money needed for such an enterprise are precisely zero. Modern jetliners exhibit such fantastically high levels of cost efficiency now that not even the most fanatical technological retro-grouch, such as me for instance, can deny the immense advantages modern jetliner travel. The sundry annoyances of modern air travel may frustrate millions but the technology of the aircraft themselves is not any sort of issue.

I Dream Of Djinni

2011-03-03T08:03:00.000-08:00

The Mideast is erupting. Erupting as if all the strained fault lines and tectonic boundaries that have existed since before the first world war have given way all at once. Each fault line is erupting in its own peculiar and unpredictable way and what may obtain in the fullness of a year's or a decade's time is not anyone's guess because any guesses at this point are wildly beyond useless. A reinforced division of Djinni have climbed out of a thousand bottles to wreak havoc, largely on deserving autocrats, but this havoc is diffuse, inchoate, and thoroughly unknowable in its multitudinous consequences.

If we know anything, and I stress if, it's that radical Islam is likely to be one of the few beneficiaries of all this turmoil. What they do with that "beneficence" is also unknowable but the odds that the chunk of planet we refer to as the Mid-East will settle into sundry nascent and evolving liberal constitutional democracies would make any Vegas bookie slam his ledger shut in disgust.

Criticism of the Obama administration's reactions to this chaos, however warranted, are beside the point. There isn't any administration that could constructively ride this unruly horse because what might be constructive one moment is likely to be savagely destructive the next moment. Every boyo worthy of the title of "foreign policy expert" has a different take on just what kind of finger to poke into what part of this chaotic pie so that we, and the West in general, remain influential players in the game instead of ultimate saps and losers in the new order(s) that will emerge. The last ten or so administrations have helped evolve this mess and it may well take the next ten to sort things out in ways that don't result in region-wide carnage and/or resource endangering calamity. Is any administration, is any body, up to this task? The answer must sadly be no. You can't play a game with no rules and I defy anyone to come up with "rules" that can possibly elucidate a clear measured response to what is happening now or in the next few years in the "Holy Land". Whatever the O'man does this response will extend through the next presidency and far beyond.

However feckless and "in over their heads" the Obama administration may be foreign-policy wise they may in fact be taking the best course. For sure no one knows that they are not. As a critic of said administration I suspect not but how the hell can we be sure? We cannot and if the current regime were to reverse course tomorrow and begin to actively support various "liberation" movements in the Middle-East we have no clue that the results would be the slightest bit better or more salubrious in any term, short medium or long.

Regarding this administration's putative handling of the situation I quote that famous political sage, Mr T, and say, "I pity the fool." Poor bastids don't really have a clue and really neither will the next admin. even if the next pres. were a combination of Churchill and Reagan incarnate. Even though Islamist activism and Pan-Arabist sentiment may be only minor percentages of the magma pouring forth from the volcano they are without question the hottest constituents thereof. Those constituents will see any "help" from western sources as blatant interference no matter how well intentioned. Going forward, as "they" say, we will be the blind legless and armless being led by vicissitudes of geo-political uncertainty profound enough to make Werner Heisenberg blush in embarrassment.

The Hy-Bridget

2010-11-29T19:44:00.000-08:00

Review of The Hy-Bridget concept from U.S.A. Motors.
By Dennis Mac Luggage
Car and Track Trends Magazine
April 2013

Amazingly after less than a year Sonny Sanders, deep pocket begetter of the exquisite Bridget Roadster, is at it again. Even before his original creation debuted to critical acclaim and solid sales numbers his merry band of tech rats were working on a concept vehicle based on the Bridget. It's uncertain if this new concept will be produced but if the public reception is enthusiastic enough, and if the price can be held to within spitting distance of the original sticker of the Bridget Roadster then it just might be in the cards.

The first odd thing about the Hy-Bridget is its looks--in that it looks exactly like a stock Roadster. Not a square inch of exterior sheet metal, trim, or interior appointment has been changed. The entire meat and guts of this concept are in the powertrain department and even there some parts, like the original engine, remain. It's a hybrid of course as indicated by the name but there is little resemblance mechanically to any other passenger car hybrid on the road today.

Sanders describes the vehicle as "an experiment rather than a concept". The object of the experiment was to find out if a hybrid powertrain could be developed and produced for nearly the same price as a conventional one without sacrificing performance, without increasing weight, and at the same time increasing fuel economy. He claims to have accomplished this feat, although instrumented testing on our part has yet to confirm it, but since every claim for the original was purely based in reality we question not, yet, these claims.

Hy-Bridget can perhaps be characterized more by what isn't there rather than what remains. What isn't there is a starter motor, flywheel, clutch, transmission, shifter, driveshaft, rear brakes, or any sign of the superlight but conventional solid axle from the original. What has replaced these parts is a 40HP 300amp generator plugged into the back of the engine, a "wheel motor" on each end of a simple alloy rear axle tube, and a small ultra-capacitor used for energy recovery. What else isn't there that is on a conventional hybrid is any sign of a main drive battery costing many thousands of dollars and weighing hundreds of pounds.

This is what as known as a "serial" hybrid design, similar in concept to that used in locomotives but rarely seen in the automotive world. Hy-Bridget makes no claims at all of having a consequential electric only range or any plug-in capability. Its standard engine and its diminutive fuel tank remain intact although the tuning of the engine is quite different. The engineering goal was to see if economy gains could be made without the weight of heavy batteries compromising performance or sending costs soaring.

Sanderson claims to have achieved all these goals and our brief test drive confirmed everything excepting the increase in fuel economy, and the price of course, but there is little reason to doubt him. The key is simplicity, of a sort that "conventional" hybrids can only dream. There's an engine, a generator, one electric motor for each rear wheel, and a 30 pound ultra-capacitor nestled into the still extant driveshaft tunnel. The big honking cap recovers energy as the car slows, assists for brief periods with acceleration, and in concert with the drivetrain management electronics serves as the rear axle's primary brakes. Pretty slick.

The use of wheel motors in concept vehicles is not new, they've been in development for well over a decade, but what makes them viable in this case is their small size--about 25 pounds each. Each "pancake" style rear wheel motor is rated at only 20 horsepower and 50 pound feet of torque--plenty for the needs of a Bridget. A wheel motor's inherent design provides mechanical advantage characteristics which obviate any need for gearing so full functionality and power is available from the motor at normal wheel rotational speeds. Needing only 25 horses and 50 lb/ft of torque puts these motors on the favorable side of the equation in terms of weight and cost. As such motors escalate to sizes and power levels needed by much larger vehicles prices skyrocket and unsprung weight becomes a major problem.

A weight of 25 pounds doesn't sound feathery but have you ever seen a conventional AC powered 25 horsepower motor in the flesh? Three strong guys would barely be able to move it. Pancake motors are very high tech and consequently expensive so even with the units replacing a lot of parts under the car it's a bit difficult to understand how U.S.A. motors could make the financial claims they touting. The similarly teched-up generator could only add to the price pressure. Once again have you ever seen a small light fifty horsepower generator? As they say about such things: Strong, light, cheap. Pick two.

Wheel motors definitely increase unsprung weight but in Hy-Bridget's case the problem is helped greatly by using the motors themselves as the main rear brakes. The HB's power management ensures that even if the ultra-cap cannot accept any more braking energy the rear brakes can have reverse polarity power applied to them to slow things down. If for some reason the engine fails completely and the cap is completely discharged the front brakes are plenty capable of slowing the car in a safe manner--they aren't power boosted if you recall so they need no additional help except for a decently healthy leg.

The Hy-Bridget's engine is identical to the Bridget Roadster's but it has been tuned to deliver about 20 fewer horsepower at a mere 4000 rpm but an identical 100 pound feet of peak torque. These 20 fewer horsies slow the Hy-Bridget's top speed to about 95 mph which although around 10 mph slower than its sister still feels like about 200 with the top down. The system takes little away from the Bridget's driving joys. No lag in power delivery. The engine spools up quickly enough but with its table flat torque curve it hardly needs to. Acceleration feels very similar to the BR with throttle response that is more than adequate, if slightly less than stellar. Handing dynamics are indistinguishable from the BR as well thank goodness. We didn't bring our bathroom scales with us on the test drive but the car feels no heavier even if it has the slightest touch more understeer than its sister. All in all the chassis tuning is succesfull in replicating that ineffable Bridget handling goodness.

The dash is almost unchanged as well. Still the same gauges since the engine still needs them but they reflect the changed operating conditions of the power train. No dash indication of the electrics is present nor is it really needed since there is no expensive persnickety battery to baby sit. There is a fault light for the ultra-cap since it is so involved with braking but even if it toasts itself the car is plenty drivable enough to get to you home provided you aren't sluicing down into Denver from the Eisenhower Tunnel. The front brakes alone could probably handle things but a long descent without electrical braking will mean one seriously fatigued extremity and probably some toasted brake pads. On the upside is that this configuration allows full authority traction control under all circumstances and significantly expands the Bridget's rather limited winter weather repertoire. There's no shifter of course and a keyed column and a button for forward and another for reverse take its place. Power management software allegedly assures that if the reverse button is hit at high forward speed nothing will be damaged. I was not brave enough to try it.

In short the Hy-Bridget "experiment" exhibits virtually the same driving experience as its conventional sister with the exception of a lower top speed. So little has been lost but has anything been really gained? Hard to say really for the light weight of the Bridget puts it in a class of its own in the automotive world. Try to translate such a powertrain to a car weighing twice as much or more and developing three or more times as much power and the cost/weight curves will climb like a P-51 Mustang at full throttle. A biggish battery is needed in most cases for typically sized hybrids or fuel economy gains will be elusive. Add to that the fact that a high-tech 40 horse generator is no heavier than the Bridget's starter/flywheel/transmission combo whereas a 150 or 200 HP generator is a whole other heavy as hell kettle of fish. Diminishing returns rapidly rear their unlovely heads in packages much heavier than a Bridget so one is unlikely to encounter a similar system in 6000 pound SUV.

CEO Sanderson swears that the car can be built for close to the BR's price but are the projected fuel economy gains worth the trouble? Sanderson is claiming a 60 mpg city rating and a 50 mpg highway rating which are impressive numbers even these days. This amounts to a 50 percent better city rating but only about a 5 mpg better highway rating. In my estimation the experiment has been a success operationally but since the genny Bridget already is a fuel miser the gains from the new powertrain will not make a big difference in operating costs and the maintenance costs may well be higher depending on the reliability of the electrical hardware. If your driving is mostly city based, that is out of the Bridget's natural element, then the mileage will definitely save dough and your range will be stellar. If you use Bridget as she is intended, scooting through curvy countryside, then you'd probably pass on the amped up version. One of each would be nice though and you could buy both for less than most current hybrids cost and instead of twice the fun you'd get four times as much.

So I count the experiment a success while questioning any real need for production but that of course is up to Mr. Sanderson. No matter. As long as the original Mz. Bridget continues to be produced he can build nitromethane powered skateboards for all I care.

Ticket To Ride

2010-11-02T09:53:00.000-07:00

Once up on a time it was standard procedure for a person to vote a "straight ticket" in elections, there was usually a method of doing so on most ballots, but for quite a long time the sober "nuanced" modern attitude is that we should instead vote according to the level of comfort we feel with individual candidates. Straight ticket voting is seen by many as irredemably ignorant and willfully ill-considered behavior. There was, perhaps, a period of several decades during which that advice could be taken without severe damage to one's overall political world view. The rationale is that it is better if we vote against our general principles if the candidate of our usual party of choice is seen as an extremist nut job or is so ethically unsavory as to be completely electorally unsatisfactory.

Nuanced, mature, and responsible are considered those who vote a "split ticket" and thick-headed rubes are those who merely punch or pull the straight Dem. or Rep. ballot or lever. In the past couple of decades however the temptation to vote a straight ticket has proven increasingly irresistible. Straight ticket voting should no longer be viewed as quaintly antique but rather as a simple and clear political necessity. If one is a thoroughgoing liberal/Progressive or conversely possesed of even a vaguely conservative mien then straight ticket voting is essentially unavoidable. For those who constitutionally consider themselves centrists the problem would seem to be severe but it is not really except for the most clueless and uninformed voter. The divide between the major polities is so severe that even the most diehard "centrist" must perforce be drawn toward one or the other because very few folks indeed are completely ideologically neutral. Teetering on the cusp of centrism has become virtually impossible if one wants to participate in the political process at all.

The facts on the ground now are such that if one is inclined to vote for any liberal/Progressive/Democratic candidate why in the name of sanity why would one vote for any libertarian/conservative/Republican candidate, or vice-versa? To cause me to do this would require the most extreme circumstances imaginable. The Republican would have to be such a clueless Neanderthal and/or a sleazebag of such epic proportions that voting for them at all would require Olympian prodigies of nose-holding. This situation occurs extremely infrequently these days, at least past the primary level, so at least a minimal level of electoral suitability can be safely expected of candidates making it all the way to the election day ballot. National examples of such primary failures are not excessively rare, the election of Al Franken comes immediately to mind, but I personally have never voted in an election where such extremities have manifested themselves. Nevertheless I have for most of my adult life been leery of the straight ticket mindset.

No more. As much unsavoriness as I might theoretically find in a nominally conservative/libertarian candidate the likelihood that I might vote for his liberal/Progressive opponent is remote to the point of absurdity. Consequently voting a straight ticket seems like the only sane response in the privacy of the booth these days. I do not bemoan this. The divide is starker than ever and the opposing world views are plainer so any vague psychological discomfort attached to not voting a split ticket has dissolved completely. It has reached the point that voting a split ticket now seems to imply not nuanced behavior but rather an utter inattention to the political process. If you have any discomfort at all with the expansion of government and its increasing intrusion in our lives then vote Republican and if you deem governmental action the first and best response to all social and economic "problems" then by all means vote Democratic. Ticket splitting these days is not so much a wholly nuanced course but rather more like a clueless half-assed one.

News From the ICE Wars.

2010-06-30T09:06:00.000-07:00

I've been wondering for a while when someone was going to finally implement a direct-injection fuel system on an American pushrod V8. It appears that Chevy will be the first with a new generation pushrod SBC in the 2012 Corvette. Reports are that it will be 335 cubic inches and will develop 440 horses which is more than the current 6.2 version does. Even with the power boost fuel economy will undoubtedly improve with direct-injection plus there's equally little doubt it will be approved as an ultra-low emissions engine system. I'm guessing the 'vette version will sport a dual clutch gearbox with at least 8 speeds which will maximize both performance and fuel economy. With such a drivetrain the 'vette might break past 30mpg out on the slab.

The eight speed gearboxes proliferating on furrin' iron are proving to be both popular and quite useful. This large number of gears might seem like overkill but they provide a much greater overall gear spread and there are only upsides to that circumstance. Eight speed trannies have allowed such as Bimmer, Audi, and Mercedes to achieve sub-five second 0-60 times with power levels that previously would not have resulted in such impressive acceleration even with six-speeds. They can use really low final drive ratios and deep low transmission ratios for sparkling performance and still have reasonable steps up toward the .50, and even higher, top gear ratios that enhance economy.

In fact I can hardly think of any engine size that would not benefit from such transmissions or even ones with 9 or 10 gear splits. That seems like even more overkill but would result in gearing spreads that are not compromised at either end of the spectrum. Dual clutch semi-autos are turning out to be a fairly reliable and very adaptable answer to many thorny problems. As Audi and Merc have shown Diesels in particular have proven very effective users of high numbers of gear splits. No surprise there, just ask a trucker, but only in the past few years have the technical issues with such multi-geared trannies been largely solved.

Dual-clutch "manual" boxes have proven much more amenable to high numbers of gear splits because they are not dependent on multiple planetary gearsets and ultra-complex power robbing hydraulic systems of conventional automatics to go about their business. They are complex devices no doubt but less so than regular automatics and they do not suffer from torque-converter losses. Plus they can be used in user transparent auto mode or they can be manually shifted for more sporting driving. All in all these multi-speed boxes, and direct injection, are important arrows in the quiver of the not so late and not yet unlamented ICE.

On Not Following The Leader

2010-05-30T10:28:00.000-07:00

Comparisons currently abound between G.W. Bush's Katrina response and Obama's BP spill response. Increasingly the Obama response is found lacking, even in Progressive solons, in a manner similar to the former. Rubbish. As Bush's response was wildly mischaracterized and grotesquely unfairly attacked in like wise Obama is taking heat for cirumstances beyond his, or any president's, control. They take the heat however illogical that might be and speaking of possible illogic a fair percentage of the electorate that swooned over the "change" promised by the Chicago Kid are suddenly in a far less receptive mood after assesing the Kid's actually attempted wholesale changes to the economy and health system. Obama may be a "leader" by trying to be "out in front" of needed change but being too far out can put one out of sight of the bulk of the electorate. For all the blather about Americans being sheep they are the least easily led folk on the planet outside the mountains of Afghanistan.

It is often impossible for a president to know whether he is leading the public or dragging it against its will. Obama seems to be leaning ever the latter way and his downward poll drift reflects that. High dudgeon and rhetorical overreach may win elections but they almost immediately become a liability a few seconds after a newbie president's backside hits the bottom of the Big Chair. And pushing really hard out of the gate virtually guarantees equally hard pushback from the electorate in the fullness of time.

Obama has pushed harder and faster than any president since at least FDR and the public is pushing back just as hard. The relentlessly promoted air of crisis that has informed this push is simply not felt outside the cloisters of DC. The economy is poor but it's wildly far from a 30s style depression, the majority of citizens like their current health care arrangements, and the bulk of the electorate is comfortable with the idea of American Exceptionalism. Wholesale economic rearrangement and constant international apologias may thrill the heartstrings of the Progressive political class but they fall flat with the centrist majority needed to re-elect a party leader to national office.

Obama has not gone one program too far. He's gone a baker's dozen, and several trillion dollars, too far and the electorate is hanging back grumbling and kvetching about the forced march. Obama was not kidding about "change". He's pushing it in spades, doing his best to do business a different way, and is rapidly finding out that the multicultural internationalist tropes beloved of Progressive academia are not playing very well in Peoria, or in Houston, Topeka, Albuquerque, Grand Rapids, Macon, Missoula, Nashville, Spartanburg, or pretty much any average center-right polity between the coasts. Many were fooled once in 2008. It is becoming less and less likely that they will be fooled twice.

Even the denizens of hard-core progressive redoubts on the coasts, and in the ever more stressed Rust Belt, are finding out the hard-core way that headlong governmental fiscal profligacy along with a headlong pursuit of absurdly costly and counterproductive green "initiatives" have proven to be a high-speed maglev ride to bankruptcy. If the coasts ever get that old time fiscal religion then Progressives can kiss the White House goodbye for a generation, again.

Quo Vadis Ya'll?

2010-05-10T12:16:00.000-07:00

In this country we have been exploring the limits of government for over 200 years and the results are in. There do not appear to be any limits to the power of government. And by any I mean any at all. It is extremely difficult to find an exception to this. I cannot think of any currently pursued activity by the citizens of the western world that is free from local, state, or federal government regulation. Not work, not play, not eating, not eliminating, not sex, not education, not speaking, not living, not dying, not nothin' nohow.

It is true that we live in an interconnected society but in our modernist zeal we have taken this to mean that any activity, however minute, affects some other person or social institution and perforce some governmental entity must regulate that activity. I defy anyone to pick an activity that is entirely free of regulation.

We cannot buy any product, a car, a boat, a steak, television, model airplane, handbag, pair of shoes, coffee pot, bar of soap, vegetable, quart of milk, mattress, financial instrument, computer, telephone, road grader, box of cereal, bottle of soda, tee-shirt, space shuttle, fishing rod, pack of cigarettes, bag of cookies, roll of toilet paper, fan, picture frame, lamp, cow, spoon, ball of twine, tire, weapon, wooden board, broom, piece of furniture, aspirin, ladder, refrigerator, light bulb, can of paint, baseball, toothpick, rubber ducky, candle, condom, guitar, hammer, stick of gum, sex toy, screwdriver, lawnmower, locomotive, egg, jetliner, light switch, faucet, paper plate, toilet, bicycle, steel bar, screen door, piano, etc. etc. etc. etc. ad infinitum and nauseum that does not have every detail of its manufacture and sale extensively ranged about by dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of pages of regulation.

Without vasty reams of regulations pre and proscribing our actions we can not: drive a car, make/get a loan, hire a painter, rent a chainsaw, build a house, send a letter, fire a gun, start a business, hunt a deer, catch a fish, raise a child, dig a well, take out the trash, change our oil, have our nails done or hair cut, fix the plumbing, use a phone, ride a bike, paint the garage, mow the lawn, sail a boat, take a bus, oogle a babe or a stud, tell an ethnic joke, cut down a tree, keep chickens, fly the flag, hire/fire an employee, take a cab, ride a horse, make a campfire, smoke a cigar, fly a plane, etc. etc. unto a google of etceteras.

And in the case of every single product, service, and action there is some segment of the population clamoring for yet more regulation. Government at all levels is happily obliging at a furious pace. I have no doubt that if every page of regulation were counted the total would be in the many tens of millions.

One has to wonder if there is really any meaningful decision that a member of any developed nation that can make at all without governmental guidance. We have rocketed smartly past Orwellianism and entered realms of state control for which there are no sufficiently descriptive terms. Control that would leave Marx, Lenin, and Mao agog at our audacity. Control that bids fair to ape the religious doctrine of pre-destination. Government control has in large part already replaced meaningful discretion in our behaviors and commercial activities. We have decided, by degrees, that we as citizens are incapable of negotiating the modern world without the hand of the state to chivvy us along at every turn. The state has our back, front, top and bottom. We are in its allegedly succoring embrace in all things.

Noisy denigrations of the the "nanny state" abound but the impetus for control spans the political spectrum. Divisions are based on what kind of control is appropriate in any given case and little thought is given to the quaint rapidly fading notion that perhaps we should not regulate this or that something or other at all. Perhaps that is simply not possible any more. We as a society certainly seem to be convinced of it.

This sounds more grim than I really mean it to be but I hope that life extension technologies do not happen so soon that I have to confront the choice of whether or not to be around when the ideas of complete social control reach an inevitable endpoint. It may be a supremely comfortable and safe existence but the vasty unintended consequences of infinite control on the human psyche will almost surely be unpleasant to behold for anyone who once lived in the quaint and unlamented long lost age of individualism.

Strong Constitution

2010-04-10T17:54:00.000-07:00

A LIVING CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Preamble

In order to ensure that every resident of the United States of America is guaranteed their fair share of funds and services provided by the federal government we do ordain this living constitution which encourages changes to federal law as the needs of social harmony and the global environment evolve over time.

Article 1.

All rights, financial obligations and responsibilities, prohibited and required behaviors, in all cases, in all states, territories, and assigns, at all times, of all residents, commercial entities, and public institutions of the United States of America shall be enumerated and mandated by legislation passed by a majority vote of the proportionally elected agency of the Federal government known as the House of Representatives. In the case of tie votes the Vice President of the United States will exercise a vote to decide the issue. Individual states may institute additional measures in any category but such measures may not supplant, modify, or negate federal statutory law.

Article 2.

The actions and policies of all agencies and branches of the federal government created by legislation are subject to review and modification by the elected members of the House of Representatives.

Article 3.

Upon passage of legislation a bill may be signed by the United States resident serving as President and become law. If not signed by the President the legislation becomes law withing one calendar week from the time of passage in the House of Representatives.

Article 4.

All conditions, remunerations, and terms of service of all employees and elected officials of the government of the United States of America will be mandated by legislation of the House of Representatives.

Article 5.

The offices of President and Vice President of the United States will be effected by direct popular vote of the residents of same. Term limitations of, and qualifications for, any federal elected office shall be mandated by legislation of the House of Representatives.

Article 6.

No restraints, of any kind, upon the privilege of voting by any person older than 18 years of age, and living within the boundaries of the United States of America, shall be permitted. Military personnel, embassy staff, or United States resident living temporarily abroad may submit ballots by mail accompanied by a copy of the resident's United States government issued identification card. No identification shall be required for voting at a polling place in the United States or territories under its control.

Article 7.

The freedoms of life, liberty, speech, religion, and the pursuit of personal fulfillment shall not be infringed except where specifically modified by federal legislation according to the evolving needs of society.

Article 8.

The power to initiate, cease, or fund hostilities against a formally declared enemy by the United States military resides exclusively in the House of Representatives. The President will serve as Commander-in-Chief of the United States military subject to review of his actions at such intervals as deemed appropriate by the House of Representatives.

Article 9.

The United States of America shall endeavor to be a member in good standing in the community of nations and shall additionally strive at all times to abide by international norms of behavior when pursuing policies that affect those beyond the borders of the United States of America. Duly constituted international law shall take precedence over United States law except where specifically noted by legislation of the House of Representatives.

Article 10.

Changes, challenges, or attempted abrogations of this constitution by any resident, or body of residents other than duly elected members of the House of Representatives, are not permitted.

That Clinking Clanking Sound

2010-03-29T16:40:00.000-07:00

Ever get the impression that the Progressive political class doesn't really understand the concept of money? The phrase "medium of exchange" seems to little intrude on their cultural sensoria. A dollar, mark, franc, pound, ruble, etc. etc. has no intrinsic value whatsoever but what we as functioning mercantile societies choose to assign it. When we use money to buy something what we are really doing is trading our services for the services of someone else. As a first order approximation when we work and for our efforts obtain a certain amount of this trading medium we use it to obtain the services provided by someone else. If we trade an actual item for another that is known as bartering which is fine but unworkable on any but the smallest local scales. So money, printed bills, checks, electronically transferred funds, or whatever merely allows a national and worldwide commerce in goods and services to take place more efficiently--or at all really.

In the end if we borrow, that is obtain some of what we do not already have, we perforce owe the person or institution from which we borrowed that same amount plus a fee for providing that service. A government bond is a loan from the purchaser which after a certain period of time will be repaid along with an agreed upon rate of interest or profit to the purchaser. No government can sell bonds with a zero percent interest rate. Who would buy such a thing? Not even the most addled Marxist/Leninist anti-capitalist zealot would ever buy a government bond with a zero percent interest rate. And the nearly limitless exigencies of the modern welfare state mean that there will never be enough tax revenues to pay for all the goodies received by the populace so money must be raised by selling bonds of sundry types.

Bond holders expect to be repaid the same as any other lender whether they are individuals or governmental entities. Individuals or governments cannot be forced to buy other governments bonds. They must in some degree be induced to buy them with rates of return that are attractive in some way. If the economics of a given country are grim their bonds can only be sold at higher rates of return or in extreme cases not at all. Shaft your large bondholders and your source of funding will dry up until some sort of fiscal sanity is restored to your economy or enterprise.

So in every real sense every cent of the ocean of the intangible but nevertheless all to real money surging to and fro around the globe is an amount owed by someone to someone else. And those loaning someones expect to be paid back just as much as when you sell a car and expect the check to cash properly. If that check bounces you are a victim of fraud just as are bondholders, even enormous ones, victimized if a country defaults on its obligations and is unable, or unwilling, to repay those bondholders. So in the end if, say, France gives the U.S. a chicken it expects the agreed upon dozen eggs in return. If the eggs are not forthcoming there may well be no chicken next time. If you don't repay someone for their services, whether it is to fix a flat tire or to finance your wildly burgeoning welfare state, then you perpetrate a fraud--period.

All the trillions the U.S. is now borrowing to finance its rapidly expanding public entitlement programs must be repaid at some point or the country will default on those loans and there will be forty-nine kinds of dire economic hell to pay.

Progressives seem to take little notice of any of this and even when they do they claim that the heaped up trillions in debt will be repaid by tax revenues from putative future economic booms. At the rate this debt is piling up the odds that any economy on this planet or any other will be able to do this would make any Vegas bookie bark in derisive laughter.

Progressives further think that those mean old nasty greedy Rich People should pay their "fair" share to enable the countless grandiose governmental projects touted by said Progressives. I got news for them. There aren't enough rich people. Not nearly enough. If we confiscated every last cent from everyone making over 200k, the newest definition of rich, it wouldn't be enough--not even close. The entire personal fortunes of every single filthy rich plutocratic oppressor of the proletariat and every criminally irresponsible Wall Street trader would not even be a good down payment on implementing the fevered entitlement dreams of progressives. Heck the personal fortunes of every last man-jack and woman-jill taxpayer in the whole country will not be enough. When the debt load equals and then surpasses the sum total gross domestic product of the labors of every single working person in the United States then we will officially be bankrupt and physically incapable of repaying this ever rising Everest of debt.

Oh sure if such a massive default were to actually occur the huge foreign government bondholders will be stuck, for an indeterminate period, and may have to just suck it up and take the hit. What they will not be likely to do is throw several trillion bucks more good money after bad because that very act would just make it that much unlikely that they would ever be repaid. Our overall public debt level now rivals that of the period during the Second World War which was repaid fairly rapidly it's true but would manifestly not have been if the current entitlement structure, let alone any Progressively contemplated future one, had then been as extensive and overarching.

Massive defaults by developed nation-states are rare but they are beginning to appear. Greece in fact has ceased to be a going concern in almost every way and is currently hat in hand to the wealthier members of the EU, Germany primarily, for a massive bailout package. If the cradle of democracy has foundered on the shoals of the entitlement state then can anyone say we will always be immune to the same fate?

No matter how mind-numbingly large the numbers blithely tossed around, and no matter how blase Progressives are that enough suckers will be found to pay, the fact will always remain that every single dollar of debt is and will be owed to someone who would like it back at some point. That's just capitalism which as reviled as it may be is not merely the preferred economic engine of prosperity but rather the only engine of prosperity ever proven to actually work.

Capitalism is not an intellectual preference competing among many others. It is the inevitable manifestation of the deepest inherent needs and wants of every human on the planet. And this trait is not merely human. No living thing, not even a microbe, can go about its business without the remuneration required for its survival. The more any given state misguidedly attempts to suppress or supplant these imbedded tendencies the more generally miserable will be its inhabitants. Progressives and harder leftists can, and of course will, argue about this until doomsday but it is, whether they will ever admit it or not, inevitable that the current, and unprecedented, massive expansion of the entitlement state will ultimately depend on many many someones somewhere at some time being willing to work for nothing. Any volunteers?

Tinfoil Tom

2010-03-16T15:38:00.000-07:00

From a recent Time article/interview with actor Tom Hanks:

"Back in World War II we viewed the Japanese as ‘yellow, slant-eyed dogs’ that believed in different gods. They were out to kill us because our way of living was different. We, in turn, wanted to annihilate them because they were different. Does that sound familiar, by any chance, to what’s going on today?”

Well there went any respect I might have been harboring for the man for with a mere four sentences he's officially joined the growing ranks of clueless celebrity numbskulls. What's truly brain boggling is that this is from someone who recently participated in a multi-year 100 million dollar mini-series about the fighting in the Pacific during WWII.

The statement "We, in turn, wanted to annihilate them because they were different." is born of a particularly fine and special sort of historical ignorance. They were indeed "different" from us in that the Japanese Empire was attempting to subjugate and pillage half the world, while killing millions of innocents in the process, and the United States was not. That's the only difference really worth considering you buffoonish yob. Sure they were reviled you nitwit. They were the ENEMY. And by enemy I do not mean the other side of a chess game or a cricket match. I mean a powerful and merciless military juggernaut that for many years before Pearl Harbor had bombed smashed and murdered its way across much of Asia and the Pacific with India and Australia square in its gunsights.

Aside from the U.S. cutting off raw and scrap material supplies to this juggernaut the main brief the Japanese held against this country is that it might prove a major roadblock in their grandiose dreams of conquest. I doubt there was any serious sort of embedded cultural hatred of the U.S. in Japan that was any worse than the normal sort of extreme Japanese disdain of all "barbarians", i.e. everyone not Japanese. And not even the most bellicose in the Japanese general staff thought that invading the U.S. mainland was remotely practical. So they were not in any wise "out to kill us because our way of living was different." and we in turn did not generally view them as having that attitude. They just wanted us out of the way and the Pearl Harbor attack was supposed to shock the U.S. so much we would sue for peace and allow their pillage of Asia and the western Pacific to proceed without interference. The attack was thoroughgoing, efficiently prosecuted, and of course one of the most profound military blunders of all time but few Americans at the time thought that it was motivated by innate hatred of the people or the culture of this country.

Before the war U.S. opinion of Japan itself was not particularly ugly, in fact it was frequently laudatory, although those of Japanese ancestry certainly had major problems on the west coast. After Pearl Harbor the U.S. propaganda machine swung into action and painted the Japanese as leering subhuman killers of innocents and savage despoilers of whole countries. The concept of "politically correct" had not reared its putrid head in those days and cartoonish characterizations of enemy peoples and combatants was de rigueur on all sides. The U.S. was lamentably not special in this regard but slack must be cut on this score because the Japanese actually were plainly and unquestionably mass killers of innocents and despoilers of whole countries. In fact their savagery was scarcely eclipsed by the Germans so however vicious our propaganda was it was not only well deserved but actually understated things. However cruel and black-hearted we thought the Japanese military was shortly after Pearl Harbor they continued to surprise us throughout the war with savagery no sane American thought even possible.

It was entirely the result of the all too real and stupefyingly wicked Japanese depredations during the war that they reaped the ultimate nuclear whirlwind and that consequence had absolutely nothing to do with propaganda posters of smirking bespectacled Japanese troops bayoneting Chinese babies. And they should thank us really because the nuclear bombings abruptly ended the war and likely saved anywhere from five to ten million lives which would have been snuffed out in a full scale invasion of the main home islands. There are in fact many millions of Japanese alive today precisely because we dropped those nuclear weapons instead of invading the country.

Moving on Mr. Hanks is an unfathomable jackass if he thinks there are any parallels whatsoever between World War Two and the current mutual disregard between the western world and the middle-east. Or at least there are no parallels on the western side. On the middle-eastern side hatred of decadent western culture and its democratic institutions is all too real and clearly supported enthusiastically by millions. Yeah yeah moderate Muslims blah blah blah. Sure there are moderates. Maybe they are in the vast majority but if so they seem especially helpless in reigning in murderous jihadists although admittedly said jihadists appear to be experts in literally explosive intimidation of said putative moderates. Most Americans do not hate Muslims but they should and do properly revile the Islamist human garbage who brought down the twin towers and who routinely attempt to mass murder their co-religionists into submission. Not a lot to love there but even so propaganda posters of caricatured swarthy leering Al Queda suicidists bombing polling places and mosques are notably lacking in American shop windows.

In summation Mr. Hanks the Japanese just wanted us out of their way while radical Islamists do in fact hate our culture and want to conquer and subjugate us by whatever means possible. Not that they are likely to achieve this but that does not make them want it any less or make their murderous depredations any more palatable. Get a grip Hanks, yank that tinfoil hat off, and really respect those men whom your production is portraying by not painting their incredible sacrifices as a mere clash of cultures or a simple matter of mutual disrespect. They hated the Japanese not because they were funny looking little yellow fellows who did not look or talk like us and did not worship the same god but because they were unspeakably savage, implacably resolute, and enthusiastically suicidal enemies not merely of us but also of the peace and freedom of half the globe. If there had been an actual Captain John H. Miller and were he were still alive today he would be very ashamed of you Mr. H.

Resting Poultry

2010-03-10T07:10:00.000-08:00

Although Toyota Corporation is the one in the soup presently I firmly believe that most other auto firms will be joining the bouillabasse in due course. This happenstance will be not be because of laxness or perfidy on the part of auto makers but rather the result of the technological chickens coming home to roost. Cars have of course increased in complexity steadily since the first quadracycle tootled down the first 19th century inventor's cobbled driveway but the trend has gathered major momentum in the last several decades. The last decade in particular has seen enormous increases in vehicle complexity under the ever greater lash of government mandates in headlong pursuit of greater fuel efficiency, exhaust pollution reduction, crash safety, recyclability, and a mishmash of politically driven "green" initiatives of sundry, and sometimes contradictory, mien.

There is no other consumer product on planet Earth that is more intensively regulated than automobiles sold in the United States--period. Noting else even comes close. To address this regulatory tsunami, and to not go out of business by not selling enough product, manufacturers have been forced to increase the complexity of vehicles to the point where even jet fighters and space shuttles might blush in embarrassment.

It should be obvious, but isn't to many, that the more complex a product the greater the likelihood that one of its parts will fail. If you make a device with ten simple parts the failure rate of the device is as a whole usually very low. If you make a device with a thousand parts the likelihood of one of those parts failing is considerably higher. If you make a device with ten thousand parts the failure of one of the components is guaranteed. At least it's guaranteed in a product that the bulk of the population can afford and even in the case of mid six-figure priced vehicles the failure of a component is hardly unusual.

One amelioration to this statistical inevitability is the concept of redundancy wherein a backup system will kick in when a critical component fails. All well and good but this approach is hardly viable in a consumer product. It is nonsensical to expect a useful level of component redundancy in an automobile. Aside from being largely impractical on an operational level major redundancy capabilities in cars would be hugely expensive and would drastically increase weight and lower fuel efficiency. A Smart Car would weigh as much as a current Mercedes E500 with such an approach--and would cost about the same as well.

There is another issue which gets little MSM coverage, unsurprisingly given the base ignorance of the non-automotive press, and that is that as vehicle systems become more complex and more under the control of computers the less the practicality of manual control of many systems. Regulation demands ever higher levels of performance, in all terms, which perforce means less direct control by the driver. To wit: Engines have become so complex and computer controlled that they no longer need, or even can accomodate, something as simple as an accelerator control cable. Electrically and hydraulically boosted computer controlled anti-lock brake systems are increasingly difficult to configure with something as simple as direct foot-operated mechanical rods or cables. Even steering systems are starting to appear that only have electronic connections between steering wheels and the cars actual steering mechanisms.

Until fairly recently if one's power steering or power brakes failed a vehicle might become much harder to steer or stop but it was still quite possible to do either. Throttles virtually always had a mechanical connection to a vehicle's fuel injection system with return springs that assured that an engine runaway was vanishingly unlikely. Now this mechanical "fail safe" tendency is rapidly disappearing. Increasingly throttles, steering wheels and even brake pedals are connected only to electronic sensors which signal the vehicle's computer, many computers actually, to accelerate, change direction, or stop according to the driver's needs. The darlings of enviros, hybrid vehicles, are even more complex, sometimes hugely so.

This trend toward much greater complexity is making vehicles more failure prone not less and therefore less safe. These new systems are very complex and rely on many sensors, electrical actuators, and, equally if not even more problematic, hundreds of thousands or millions of lines of computer code. At this level of complexity some sort of failure is essentially inevitable. What's worse is that failure of any given part is entirely unpredictable.

The computer sitting on your desk, however expensive, can be relied on to crash on a fairly regular basis. This can be an inconvenience, even a serious one, but restarting usually puts things to right although the loss of data may be a big pain. The computers in vehicles may be more reliable than home units but they are hardly immune to glitches, bugs, and internal component failure. The problem, rather obviously, is that the failure of a vehicle computer can have far deadlier consequences than merely losing the text of an email you were composing on your lap top.

If your home computer's mouse fails you run down to Best Buy or Walmart and pick up a new one. If the hard drive, the power supply, or the screen fails, the fix might be so expensive that you retire the offending device and buy a whole new one. In a vehicle if a sensor, actuator, or buggy line of code causes serious problems at 70mph on the freeway it won't matter a damn if replacement parts are readily available at a dealer because you may be stuck, possibly injured, and maybe slightly dead due to the failure.

Nothing made by the hand of man or machine is perfect. Out of a million things made by that hand or that machine a certain number of them will break, not work properly, or fail to work at all. As vehicles rapidly become more complex under the lash of regulation born of consequence-be-damned green hysteria such failures as currently bedevil Toyota will spread to all auto makers. The more technologically advanced vehicles become the more unreliable they will inevitably be. And due to the anti-corporate hyperventilations of the Progressive political class the trend shows little sign of abating.

Happy freakin' motoring.

In Harm Reduction's Way

2010-02-19T18:54:00.000-08:00

There is currently a battle raging between anti-tobacco zealots, who refuse to countenance any use of any form of the weed at any time, and a rather saner segment that favors what is called a "reduced harm" strategy. The vehemence of the ATZs makes it clear that they think that the tobacco leaf is the pustulent rotting foliage of Satan's favorite houseplant and, mostly being good liberals, slot tobacco company execs at the penultimate nadir of human slime mold just below concentration camp commandants and only just above the arch villain Limbaugh. ATZs will apparently not rest until every fibrous vestige of Nicotiana tabacum is expunged from the society of humankind.

A significantly less rhetorically incindiary group known as reduced harm advocates admit that the reduction of smoking is a Good Thing but instead of punitive taxation and nanny-state coercion they prefer the considerably more effective course of offering smokers substitutes that deliver nicotine in a far less unhealthy fashion.

There are number of harm reduction products (patches, gum, "electronic" cigarettes and the like) available which eschew tobacco entirely. Other products can accomplish similar goals although they are not designed expressly as such. This unintentionality is represented by products known generically as "smokeless" tobacco. Until recently in American terms this has meant primarily snuff (moist and dry) and various forms of chewing tobacco. So you got your dip and your chew which are widely popular in the relatively rural hinterlands but have sundry aesthetic drawbacks that hinder a greater level of big-citified adaptation.

Having closed in on diminishing returns regarding smoking elimination ATZs have set their sights on demonizing, taxing, and to whatever degree possible impeding the "spread" of smokeless tobacco. A favorite tag line for anti smokeless propaganda is "If you think dip is safer than smoking then think again." That overwrought sentiment is in fact a plain baldfaced lie. Dip and chew do in fact have some health repercussions but they utterly pale compared to smoking. Their use is wildly safer with health consequences that are negligible compared to inhaling a pack or two of cigs a day. And oh yeah even the supposedly sober science oriented American Lung Association propagates this abominable lie.

When pressed hard antis may admit that smokeless may in fact safer than smoking but are quick to trot out the shibboleth that smokeless products are a "gateway" to smoking for young people. There is virtually no scientific evidence to support this but antis seem to believe that if they say it often enough and with sufficient force and sincerity then it must be true. Further antis assert that the recent increase in flavors of smokeless tobacco is a scurrilous and naked attempt to attract impressionable children to such products. Nonsense. It is an attempt to cash in on the proliferating public smoking bans in all parts of the country which affect adults more than whippersnappers. In New York City "Nanny" Bloomberg is busy pushing the ban of flavored smokeless products except for traditional flavors such as "natural" and wintergreen. How this might keep youngsters from using smokeless is a mystery entire. Without doubt steep tax increases, the first refuge of the Progressive, are soon to follow.

There is one smokeless tobacco product that in addition to making inroads in the U.S. market in recent years is not only far safer than smoking but is safer yet than traditional American dip and chew. It hails from Sweden and is known as snus which is pronounced "snoose". The word simply means snuff in Swedish but any resemblance to traditional inhaled dry snuff or American dip is entirely lacking. Snus is packaged primarily in "portions" which are gram sized amounts of finely ground tobacco encased in a soft tea bag like tube or pouch. These portions are intended to be inserted between one's upper lip and gum and deliver nicotine and flavor in a fashion that is accurately, if inelegantly, labeled "spitless". This means that they draw far less saliva than traditional dip and do not require the spitting out of juice which elevates the social acceptability level dramatically.

This spitless behavior is due to the way Swedish snus is manufactured. Instead of the normal American practice of fire curing/fermenting snus is steam pasturized which not only renders any adverse microorganisms inert but also greatly reduces the levels of carcenogenic nitrosamines found in dip and chew. In fact it reduces them to near microscopic levels that are far lower than dip and chew--vanishingly low. As a result the deleterious consequences of snus usage are essentially nonexistent. A variety of Swedish government and academic medical studies have shown snus to be by far the most harmless tobacco product sold, period. One study indicated a possible tiny increase in pancreatic cancers among snus users while others have failed to establish any increased disease risk at all.

What these studies have also shown is that snus is not only not a gateway to smoking but is in fact a brightly lit EXIT sign for smokers. Snus has been made and used in Sweden for over 200 years but its popularity soared in the 1970s when, in addition to the original "lös" or loose form which required hand forming into a small cylinder, the product was offered in "portions". Portions made snus usage nearly invisible socially and were rather less messy than the lös form. The actual product, and the strict Swedish regulation of its manufacture, was not changed. Since then usage has greatly increased so that now over one million people (out of a population of only nine million) uses snus in Sweden and thousands of smokers switch each year. As snus usage increased smoking waned as did overall health consequences. Now Sweden has the lowest rates of lung and mouth cancer of any developed country.

The comparative health benefits of snus are utterly incontrovertible and as an aid to smoking cessation it exhibits higher percentages of efficacy than any other method. It still delivers nicotine of course but being merely addicted to nicotine is fantastically preferable to smoking. The varying nicotine delivery levels of different brands are what aid smoking cessation because snusers can vary the level according to need. A cigarette delivers about 1mg of nicotine over a few minute period. Snus delivers its nicotine in a time frame of 30 to 60 minutes with some levels as low as 4mg and as high as 19. The lower levels can be used in a "maintenance" strategy and there are versions strong enough to kill even the strongest cigarette cravings.

Snus is available in a wide variety of flavors and packagings, and nicotine strength of course, which accommodates virtually any taste. Snusing in Sweden cuts across all social, economic, and gender lines, from horny-handed working men to fashionista femmes in executive suites, and thus has no shortage of cosmopolitan cachet. It is practically de rigueur for club hopping and hanging.

In the past half dozen years snus has begun to make market inroads in the U.S. although its share is still tiny. An extremely enthusiastic and boisterous online community has sprung up with many sites offering commentary and reviews of snus products. A number of online retailers have opened to service this growing market and sales are increasing steadily if not spectacularly.

A few U.S companies have made timorous forays into the market, most notably RJR with its Camel SNUS line. The brand has had modest commercial success but sales have recently stalled. Snus congnescenti in general disdain the Camel version as greatly inferior in taste and nicotine delivery compared to the real Swedish deal. Some even mutter that RJR is using its weak tea snus version merely as an adjunct to smoking with little intent to displace sales of cigarettes. Having tried it I concur with this assessment. A Marlboro branded snus has made an appearance on store shelves but the less said about this excremental junk the better. Regardless of that if snus continues to rise in popularity the U.S. companies will likely take greater notice and offer product more competitive with the genuine article.

Snus may well be a boon to clubs and bars since so many municipalities are banning smoking in virtually all public venues. There would be absolutely zero chance of any allegedly harmful "secondary" fumoria for antis to fret and fuss about. Snusing in restaurants will be less popular because although drinking liquids whilst using is possible, and even rewarding, eating is another matter.

I forsee the advent of the Snus Bar which would offer a selection of product along with the usual sorts of adult beverages. For the non-alchoholic set the coffehouse business model might prove attractive. And just as importantly snusing at work, or at the countless places that now ban smoking, will not involve fleeing outside into rain cold or snow to get a nic fix. Snusing at the movies? By all means. Snusing on hospital visits? Bring it on. Snusing in church? Whatever your conscience will tolerate.

This rosy future is under threat by the usual suspects. Not only are states and municipalities socking smokeless tobacco with draconian new taxes but ATZs and their progressive fellow travelers in Congress are pushing a bill which is currently oozing its way through the legislative process. It is the PACT bill, short for Prevent All Cigarette Trafficking Act, and is aimed at illegal cigarette trafficking but threatens to ensnare snus in its blundering nanny-state dragnet. The bill will, among other things, impede and raise the cost of internet sales of tobacco products which are the principal means of obtaining Swedish snus since U.S. local retail sales are as yet fairly spotty. Ironically cigars are exempt from the bill's provisions which raises dark suspicions that the bill's authors think that fat cat CEOs and stogie lovin' pols wouldn't have supported it for fear of having access to their favorite pricy predilection impeded.

ATZs from hither and yon are naturally applauding the bill because it is, of course, "for the children". O' Lawd give me strength. Oblivious twits that they are most antis are likely unaware of either snus or its potential benefits to the smoking population. Even if they were aware their vehemence would doubtless be unmodified since snus cleanly and conveniently delivers the vile poisonous addictive drug nicotine. Nicotine is of course addictive but in amounts consumed normally by humans the health hazards of the chemical by itself are inconsequential compared to the ravages of the most widely used delivery system which is smoking. Snus usage entirely eliminates the hazards of smoke, threatens no one with secondary effluvia, and is about as minimal a cause of health problems as is statistically conceivable.

Incidentally the FDA is maliciously complicit in the ATZ's preposterous deceptions by requiring that snus labels have a warning that states "This product is not a safe alternative to smoking." or "This product may cause mouth cancer." No you bloody fools it is a completely safe alternative and will cause no cancer of any kind. How the devil would the FDA know anyway? They have done exactly zero testing of genuine Swedish snus and are apparently unaware of the many studies that have been done by the Swedes, Brits, Australians, and others. If they are not unaware of these studies then the warning labels are a cruel malfeasance which is likely born of being in thrall to, or fearful of, ATZ's eliminationist demagoguery.

Snus usage will likely increase because of its benefits and enjoyment of use, even while laboring under punitive measures, but if propagandic mendacity, onerous taxation, and relentless perspectiveless pursuit of tobacco bans continue to be employed by ATZs then they will have finally marked themselves as heedless blinkered obsessives who have willingly let themselves be led into abject criminal irresponsibility by impeding one of the most effective methods of quitting smoking.

Politics at Play

2010-02-09T08:59:00.000-08:00

Playing Politics. What an odious phrase this has become. When one is accused of "playing politics" with an issue or event it has come to mean an ignoble attempt to take advantage for pure partisan reasons. What I would love to know is why this is in any sense unusual or for that matter particularly undesirable?

If it is anything politics is the art of working one's individual or collective will to advance an agenda of policy prescriptions or to denigrate and attempt to stop policies and legislative efforts which which one disagrees. Politics is "our" ideas against "yours" and everything else is details which are of course the Devil's playground but such applies to all human endeavor, political or otherwise. To quote Lil' Abner "Them GOPs and Democrats each hates the other one. They's always criticizin' what the other's gone and done." which is an entirely salubrious state of affairs to this avowed admirer of cholesterotic partisanship.

Everyone plays politics. Thou canst not be a political animal without doing so. This animal, i.e us, presumably would like to see his preferred policy agenda advance through the legislative system towards implementation. Said animal perforce naturally wants to associate himself with an organization that agrees with his general outlook. What we have to answer that need is political parties. Many many folks despise this allegedly parlous state of affairs which manifests itself in our general binary political landscape. But why? This binary arrangement has ample room for disagreement within party structure as proved by the frequently fractious nature of debate within parties. A wide range of policy preferences, from the center to the extremes, is serviced to varying degrees in either party apparatus.

Many bemoan this largely binary approach and maintain that the major parties cannot represent the full range of political thought in the country. To whatever extent this is true it is a strength and not a weakness since out of party chaos usually bubbles up candidates and policy initiatives that hover, usually, somewhere about the centers of their respective political spectra. This only makes sense because in presidential terms a fringe candidate's chances for nationwide success are extremely low, practically zero.

These respective party centers, however representative of their own middle ranges they may be, are usually very far apart in tone, methodology and ideological thrust. Consequently the all too human, therefore all too political, tendency is to attempt to denigrate and vilify an opposing candidate's ideas to whatever extent possible. As we often see this process can be nasty in extremis but it is nonetheless an utterly healthy phenomenon. It is the primary method available for keeping parties "honest". Loudly calling BS on a political operative's statements is not a lamentable defect of the system but rather its finest feature.

Every political animal has its own style in this process ranging from sober measured reflection to violent profane name calling. We the public must decide what we like most or least about his process and act accordingly. That this is often a tragically imperfect process is beside the point but in a republic it has proven the least worst of all other methods.

A binary party system has its defects but they pale against the deficiencies of parliamentarian fractiousness wherein many competing factions jockey for supremacy. Ironically the "coalitions" that result from willy-nilly multi-party negotiations usually end up distilling disparate power bases into two competing entities that mimic the entrenched binarism of the U.S.

Playing politics, hurling possibly unsubstantiated charges answered by the same or worse, is not a lamentable defect but rather a signal virtue. The "truth" will out, especially in this information rich age, so have at it people. Call your names, assassinate other's characters, question each other's patriotism, yell from the rooftops, lie like rugs, parade in the streets, wave goofy banners, carry on like afflicted nut cases, do it all. Play politics like entities possessed. Enjoy yourself and thank your lucky stars that in this country character assassination is a preferred method as opposed to what obtains in too many corners of the earth which is actual assassination.

Newks

2010-01-31T22:02:00.000-08:00

In his State of the Union speech President Obama made noises about how resurgent nuclear power can contribute to the country's energy needs, and in a "green" way naturally. Long time proponents took this as a good sign and hailed proposed subsidies intended to jump start the struggling industry. This long time proponent of nuclear power thinks this is a lousy idea. Not the power but the subsidies. After years of carping about how pointless and anti-market the billions thrown at green power projects have been it is more than a little disingenuous to approve of subsidies for nuclear power.

Nuclear power is a good idea in any number of ways but if it is not a sound commercial idea then why should we encourage it? Nuclear power needs to make economic sense in terms of an energy company's generation portfolio before a spade of earth is turned. Subsidies can only distort those economics because subsidies always distort the economics of any project that aspires to commercial viability. Either the country needs nuclear power badly enough to spend investor money on it or it does not. I think that it does and that investors will respond if the government will just stay the hell out of the way.

Subsidies will mean regulators will be even more intrusive than they already are which in the case of nuclear power is about as extreme as it gets. Bad enough that new nuclear plant building will attract the usual legions of anti-nuke whack-jobs prostrating themselves at work sites followed by phalanxes of lawsuit happy foundations trailing battalions of eager pinstriped shysters in their wakes. To add political overseers to the mix should rightly give pause to any sane company contemplating nuclear generation expansion. Really who needs that kind of grief?

Damn shame. We really do badly need more nuclear power, a lot more, but I suspect that we won't get a lot more due to the decades long flood of noisy activist bile ranged against it. The bile, the nuts, the foundations, and the shysters have conspired to increase both the financial burdens and the public relations problems to crippling degrees. Which has been the point of the whole exercise of course, and has been extremely successful, thus I'm skeptical that the changed minds of a few environmental apostates will be enough to undo the damage.

Obama's first instinct, as in all things, is to fling money at the "problem". The problem is not money. The Problem is half a century of heedless agitation against one of the most resource efficient and overall cleanest methods of generating electricity yet devised. Even Obama's alleged prodigies of soothing, albeit increasingly threadbare, rhetoric will not cause the ever ready regiments of antinukers to slink back to their coffee houses and campuses in chastened contrition. In fact the prez's recent nuke approving speechifying might well enrage them further.

Realigning a Pivot

2010-01-25T16:53:00.000-08:00

The aftermath of the Massachusetts senate election has produced the predictable flood of punditry expounding on its import with a significant subset of opinion devoted to whether or not Obama should "realign" or perform a political "pivot" back toward the center. The most salient problem with that approach is that it is likely to enrage his progressive base and be entirely unconvincing to centrist and conservative skeptics. Regardless of the advisability of such a course I am not sure that it would even be possible for Obama to attempt.

Obama is a thoroughgoing creature of the modern Liberal weltanshaung, a perfectly adapted swimmer in the warm comforting sea of progressive pieties and emotions, and a shining exemplar of the near monolithic leftist intellectual certitude of the Academy. How can such a person consider even slight political movement in the direction of the reviled "Party of No"? The short answer is that he really can't and evidence is provided by his risible assertion that his programmatics have failed because he has neglected to keep the American people adequately informed of the exquisiteness of his legislative efforts. In effect he thinks that a sufficient number of rhetorical spoonfuls of sugar can still make the progressive medicine go down.

He's not that good. Is anyone that good? Is there a progressive Professor Harold Hill out there silver-tongued enough to sell the program to a still largely center-right voting population? Further is anyone good enough to not only sell the product but to sneak the sale past the legion of gimlet-eyed Mayor Shinns of conservative punditry? The NYT, WaPo, MSNBC, NPR barbershop quartet has proven ineffective in distracting the populace from the reality of the neo-Music Man's honeyed entreaties.

It appears that the public was fooled by the celebrity of Obama into ignoring his clear progressive tendencies and it also appears that in winning the election Obama was equally fooled into thinking that broad public approval for an historic expansion of government was finally at hand. A fickle public may, for a while, buy the Snake Oil but stands ever ready with the tar and feathers for national politicians of extremist bent. Just ask George Wallace and Ross Perot.

Pivoting towards the center will do little but bring out the pitchforks of the left and the sneers of the right and will send Obama's poll numbers ever southward. To be chastened or humbled by all this will require not a mere pivot or realignment but a wholesale abandonment of the effects of an entire lifetime spent basking in the comforting currents of the Tropic of Progressivism. That's about as likely as a clandestine love tryst involving Rush Limbaugh and Nancy Pelosi.

A lifelong doctrinaire progressive such as the prez tends to think of conservatives not as the opposition but as the enemy--an aggressive insurgency whose rhetorical IEDs threaten the ultimate triumph of the caring liberal educrat intelligentsia. Obama may extend a tentative olive branch to the GOP but I feel sure that gurgling away in his mind/triangulation computer are thoughts not of how they can be accommodated but rather how they can be cleverly co-opted and soothingly enticed away from the enemy camp. He will find that there really are differences that will fail to be reconciled. Selling the GOP on any part of a huge expansion of the power of the federal government will be a considerably tougher sell than merely getting folks to pull a lever in a voting booth.

On A Clear Day

2010-01-18T11:42:00.000-08:00

There is an interesting piece in the latest Weekly Standard by James W. Ceaser titled "The Roots of Obama Worship". The central thesis involves Obama being an incarnation of Auguste Comte's Religion of Humanity. There's much to admire in the piece but a major quibble of mine would be Ceaser's contention that "His campaign, which was so brilliant in building enthusiasm and attracting support, did little to provide Americans with a clear idea of where he planned to take the country."

Bollocks. Obama's intentions were about as unclear as a mile wide asteroid strike, at least to myself not to mention legions of grumpy pundits who catalogued his bright colorful displays of progressivism and conservative bashing that were as just about as far from recondite as is humanly possible. The biggest problem was not Obama's alleged stealthiness but rather much of the general public's notion that for a candidate to be as un-Bush-like as possible was a cracking good idea.

Much of the public, bless their clueless little hearts, was determined to throw the rascals out so non-stop Bush and conservative bashing was what got and retained their attentions which by all appearances were oblivious to the steady drenching rain of promises to re-arrange the political landscape much more to the liking of progressives.

Obama's "intentions" were hidden only to the extent that the relentless drum beat and exaltation of the brain numbing "Hope and Change" malarky served as a masking camouflage for those unencumbered by the thought process. That it was camouflage of the most sheerly diaphanous sort did not seem to matter.

Cynics might say that this describes politics in general and bewildered liberal pundits made similar observations about the two previous national elections but the last cycle must be counted as a record setting exemplar of the phenomenon. Big time turnabout is fair play in this game and brother it is a corker. Primary evidence for it is that though it took some eight years for the public to become largely un-entranced by the Bush ascendancy the same has happened to Obama in a scant single turn of the calendar.

Secondary, and spectacular, evidence is illustrated by the possibility that a Republican might win (on date of writing this) the Senate seat vacated by the late Teddy K. This seat has been a virtual Democratic sinecure since the Cretaceous Era and even the faint likelihood of them losing it is nothing short of astounding. A clearer rebuke to donkeydom is difficult to imagine.

Awfully early for buyer's remorse to have set in but if political overreach is severe enough the counter reaction is usually just as severe. Overreach there may have been but those intentions were telegraphed at mega decibel levels during the campaign so it took grand prodigies of self-delusion to not take them at face value. The Obamanation has reacted, log-rolled, and legislated in 100 percent predictable fashion. If you'uns are surprised by all this then you're gonna have to take your dope slap in good humor and endeavor to peek a nanometer beneath the glossy surface of the next demagogue's soaring inspirhetoric in three, seven, eleven, or whatever years. Possibly the electorate's idiocy will be a bit less blithering in future but don't bet the grocery money on it.

Cold Discomfort

2009-12-31T21:42:00.000-08:00

Forgive the clumsy channeling of the bard but to many it appears that the petrol fueled vehicle's candles are burnt out and the jocund electric car stands tiptoe on the misty mountain top. Yeah well to some of us the pure electric vehicle siren song is one that sings so out of tune, straining harsh discords and unpleasing sharps. The heck with nightingales, I hear only larks.

Outside my window is the salient reason for this grumbling where it is about 10 degrees Fahrenheit and headed to a morning low of about zero. Five hundred miles north of here lows will be closer to minus 10 or 15. In that northern reach January morning lows can easily crack 30 below which sounds even colder in Celsius (-34). In fact the entire northern half of the U.S. can see zero degree F. temps in a given year to say nothing of the entirety of Canada. In Europe just about any place north of the Côte d'Azur can experience winter climes of comparable frigidity.

Here's a statement of surprise to absolutely no one. Batteries hate being cold. They hate it because they produce their energy by means of chemical reactions and virtually every chemical reaction known to science slows down as temperature drops. The more complex the chemistry the greater the effect in general and to make matters worse the more exotic the chemistry the more the range of temperatures over which the reactions are most efficient is narrowed.

The typical conventional lead-acid battery used in vehicles for the last century is normally rated in something called "cold cranking amps" which is the amount of current it will deliver at a temperature of, if memory serves, zero degrees Fahrenheit and at a voltage of 7.2. Most 12 volt automotive batteries used are rated in the range of 600-800 cold cranking amps which sounds like a lot of juice and it is but is necessary because engines are harder to start in cold conditions. Consequently automobiles use a battery which has far more energy than needed to start an engine at mild temps but this is ameliorated by the fact that even large high capacity lead-acid batteries are simple devices and cost, at most, a couple of hundred dollars and their service life is from about three to five years.

The batteries used in hybrids, metal-nickle hydride, and in most upcoming pure electrics, lithium ion/polymer, are not simple devices, at least not chemically, respond poorly to extremes of temperature and contain high fractions of extremely expensive materials. Their percentage loss of capacity in cold conditions can drastically exceed that of lead-acid types and at elevated temps they are quite susceptible to overheating damage. What is not economically practical is to upsize lithium main vehicle drive batteries to account for extreme cold. They are crazy expensive to begin with so whereas increasing the capacity of a lead-acid starting battery is a matter of spending a few tens of dollars more, using the same tactic with lithium main drive batteries would cause costs and weights to soar smartly above their already absurd price levels which are in the ten to fifteen thousand dollar range.

Large lithium main drive battery packs, which perform well at 40-90 degrees Fahrenheit, can lose as much as 75 percent of their capacity at 0 degrees which converts a fair weather range of 100 miles to a frustrating 25 or 30 miles or even less. Most likely less because an internal combustion powered vehicle can use the waste heat of its engine to warm its occupants whereas the only source of heating energy in a pure electric vehicle is its main battery. And heating a cabin at sub-zero temps takes a lot of energy. It may well take as much energy to heat the cabin as it does to push the vehicle down the road making a poor situation pathetically worse. When temps approach or sink past 20 below, common in the upper plains, a pure electric vehicle might not get you out of the driveway let alone to work 10 or 20 miles away.

If the vehicle is parked overnight in a heated garage then the picture changes somewhat but if heated parking is not available at your workplace then your chances of getting home are slim unless you can plug in at work. Even then if your commute is much above 20 miles and the temps are not above zero you will be in trouble. A way around this is to have battery heating systems that operate concurrently with charging but in bone-chilling climes this will use large amounts of juice the cost of which will leave you, and your employer, rather less than thrilled.

Conventional liquid fuel powered vehicles also lose efficiency in very cold temps but only to the tune of a few percent so your range will be far less affected than will be the case with electrics. All in all pure electric vehicles will simply be unusable in very cold climates essentially ruling out sales above, (north) and below (south) about 35 degrees latitude right around the earth. That's one heck of a market slice to be unable to service and the long term viability of a vehicle only useful in very temperate climes is seriously questionable. Electric vehicle sales and usage will be a Sunbelt phenomenon, if even that. Even in San Francisco which has a climate operationally and politically friendly to electrics an owner will be essentially confined to the western edge of the Sierra Nevada only a hundred miles away.

A blue sky solution to some of these problems is promised by the advent of devices known as ultra-capacitors which are units that store electrical energy in a non chemical manner and are thus less subject to the vicissitudes of climate. They are as yet significantly less energy dense than lithium batteries so significant weight penalties are incurred in trying to match lithium storage capacities. They are consequently more expensive than lithium cells on a capacity basis but they do have the advantages of very rapid recharging and significantly better performance in cold weather. Ultra-capacitors can be utilized very effectively in energy recovery and acceleration boost scenarios, thus working satifactorily in some hybrid designs, but in terms of primary energy storage they are to date not a viable alternative.

All putative pure electric drive systems, of whatever capacity or capability, all suffer from having only the main battery pack to power not only its drive motors but to also provide power to the increasingly long list of electronic gizmos that clutter the dashboards of modern cars. They all take energy although usually not nearly the large amounts that heating and air conditioning do. Speaking of which AC will require not merely energy from the main battery but an additional electric motor in the range of three to five horsepower will be needed to power the compressor. Lithium cells tend to get very hot in heavy use so most vehicles, the Chevy Volt for example, will have onboard systems to cool the batteries in hot weather/heavy use modes lest the packs drastically overheat and catch fire. Those factors will be the Sunbelt bugaboos analogous to the Snowbelt blues.

The much ballyhooed Volt is not a pure electric vehicle. It's design template utilizes, requires really, an internal combustion engine to take up where the largish battery pack leaves off and by all reports it does this seamlessly with little or no driver input. It really should be thought of as the first "strong" hybrid design from a major manufacturer as opposed to "weak" or parallel designs from Toyota, Honda, Ford, etc. GM's biggest problem with the Volt may well be brisk sales for even with the absurd government subsidies they will not for a goodish while be able to make a profit on the vehicle. Even Toyota found profits elusive with sales of its Prius for several years, due its pre-recession overall profitability, but GM is hardly in a position to do likewise.

Do not look for battery prices to come down by very much. They will continue to increase in capacity at a given weight over time but since this will require ever more advanced technology being applied to them cost reductions are unlikely. Not impossible understand just extremely unlikely. Big advances and large cost reductions have been "just around the corner" for over a hundred years so don't expect quick results however impressive the vast heaps of cash flung at the problem by the government.

And no a putative "Manhattan Project" style approach will not really help. The Manhattan project was not about figuring out how to build a bomb, that was already largely in hand. It was primarily about quickly ramping up the huge industrial infrastructure to manufacture the large amount of fissile material needed in the construction of the weapons. This is not the case with battery technology. We don't already know how to build batteries with capacities that would allow electric vehicles to match conventional vehicle ranges and to charge as rapidly as filling a fuel tank from a pump, in any climate, and to not weigh a bloody ton or cost a stinkin' fortune.

We don't know yet what tech, if any, will allow this to happen and if it somehow does then the manufacturing infrastructure will doubtless take years to put in place. Remember that the Manhattan Project was very nearly a cost-no-object enterprise undertaken in response to an enormously threatening global conflict prosecuted by fanatically led industrialized nations. Sorry to break the news but a fecklessly quixotic "Saving the Planet" project simply does not qualify as a crisis in remotely the same sense that imminent national annihilation does.

So knock yourself out bud. Spend that 30 or 40 gees on that seductively subsidized electric icon worshiped by the grand universal eco-church but don't call me for a ride when the blizzards howl or old Sol bids fair to melt the pavement. Your mocking laughter when you pass the saps at the gas pump in clement weather will ring most hollow then old man. Oh what sweet schadenfreude it will be to me and to thee will be old Will's richly deserved "cold comfort".

Proof Reading

2009-12-30T07:44:00.000-08:00

Snow lies thick on the ground here today. This proves, in the overall climate scheme of things, nothing at all. This last summer was not as hot as the previous two. This proves not a darn thing. There were bad hurricanes on the Gulf Coast in 2008 and 2005. This proves not a bloody thing. In this area many of the record cold snaps happened in the 1980s. Again proving diddly. Many of the record warm temps for December dates here were set in the 1930s--proving jack-squat. Northern Hemisphere temps were, duh, warmer in the "Medieval Warm Period" and colder in the late 1700s "Little Ice Age". Proving, let me see, oh yeah, nothing whatsodamnever.

Taken altogether, along with any and all climate records from the crudest early measurements to ice cores to tree rings, they do prove that predicting next week's, next year's, the next decade's or the next centuries' average global temperature is an utter fool's errand. And hubristically predicting the "climate", let alone any particular weather event, of any particular spot, region, country or continent with any remote degree of accuracy years hence is simple lunacy.

The earth will warm, it will cool, storms will destroy, droughts will endure and end, floods will ravage, and ice will retreat and advance. The climate record of the earth paints a picture of a dynamically unstable system that may or not be recordable or explainable but what it is not is predictable no matter if supercomputers are lined up from here to the moon and back. A planetary biosphere is a creature of chaos, minutely sensitive to thousands of "initial conditions", shifting and rotating inscrutably, that cruelly mock attempts to model it with our current crude computer skills.

Global warming alarmists loudly aver that we are smart enough to do the job, that present computer modeling and data collection techniques are entirely adequate to the task, that the "science is settled", that "we" are dead bang certain that the climate of Terra is morphing into a hell of overheated turmoil bringing mass death and destruction down upon the heads of all of us evil human wankers with our insistence on continuing our vile sick monkey motions of planetary despoilization.

Those of us unenthralled by all this gloom mongering are painted as manifestly evil planetary criminals if we have the gall to question the grand project of the expenditure of trillions of currency units on the wholesale rearranging of our lifestyles so as to avoid a degree or three of possible planetary average temperature change. We are thuggish insensate "deniers" if have the temerity to question the many assumptions of modeling software or the dodgy malleable "normalizing" of collected climate data. We are paid industry shills doing the dirty work of our corporate/political dictators if we voice even vague suspicions that the whole enterprise of "saving the planet" dovetails nearly perfectly with a grand overarching progressive political agenda. If the contrarian "we" has disputation with the science-is-settled "we" then it is now acceptable, practically required, for the latter to engage in sneering ridicule, academic apartheid, and emotional persecution of the former.

Saving the Planet has become not a mere incidental feature of the progressive ideological thrust but rather its living beating heart, the consummate and overpowering justification of all things good and green, and the opportunity to not merely use the "crisis" to rearrange society in ways deemed planet friendly but to also retool and hyper-compassionize our very psyches.

It is a truly spectacular irony that while conservatives have ever been painted as dreary maintainers of the cultural status quo (standing athwart History yelling "Stop!) the current green progressive political thrust has resulted in a frantic keening headlong pursuit of the status quo of an entire planetary biosphere. Thus, in contrarian contrapuntalism, we offer the image of a placard waving green activist standing athwart the whole Planet yelling "STOP! Or F**king Else!"

Jihadi Motors

2009-12-28T17:40:00.000-08:00

The recent Detroit terror dust up should remind us that there is, realistically, not much that can be done to completely eliminate the terror threat to commercial airliners considering that religious whack-jobs not only do not mind dying in the attempt but eagerly anticipate it. I'm fairly certain that short of an El Al style level of security that some incendiary Islamist will succeed in glorious self-immolation in one or more instances. Fine you say, let's have that level of security.

Not so fast bunky. El Al can afford to be the safest airline in the world because it is an arm of the Israeli government and that entity is not even slightly solicitous of the current western pieties of multi-cultural color, race, gender, and ideological tolerance. If an El Al official so much as doesn't like your looks then you don't get anywhere near an aircraft and you'll likely find yourself hustled off and detained, possibly indefinitely. If some Israeli ambulance chaser objects to such treatment on behalf of someone then he may very well be hustled off as well.

This is a pure police state approach which is entirely understandable in Israel and most everyone there accepts this as a price to be paid for their security, indeed their very continued existence. Whoo boy I'd like to see an airline try that here. They'd be immediately assaulted by flying brigades of panting legal beagles and reinforced divisions of federal bureaucrats who would hound company officials into court, jail, and commercial oblivion in that order. Many many are those who think that if we have to have to resort to such draconian civil liberties shredding then we are no better than our enemies, an attitude fraught with problematics to be sure. Even those that don't object, or at least think they wouldn't, are not likely to welcome the massive delays and cost increases that massively intrusive passenger screening would entail.

If there are a couple of jihadi "successes" then the public may well clamor for radically increased security but will at the same time inevitably balk at the huge inconveniences necessitated. And the response of a significant number of the flying public may torpedo an already struggling commercial airline industry. They will take to their cars. Possibly in the millions.

This will of course cause a huge dislocation in the country's economy if a trillion dollar industry goes moribund and the automotive and road service industries expand to meet the need. The jihadists may well count this as a job well done so in this case terrorists would "win". Howsomever in the fullness of time such a dislocation will severely irritate the American public to the point that they electorally reverse the ongoing wussification of U.S foreign policy and create a citizenry freshly riled up over this dubious win.

Terrorism works but it rarely works in the way it was intended which is to cow a populace into fear and indecision. A jihadist success every few years will simply insure that the country will keep the long knives sharpened and tend to elect leaders who treat terrorist nutbars as dishuman insects to squash instead of members of an oppressed underclass deserving propitiation.

The American airline industry may circle the drain but such a circumstance would inject life into the stumbling automotive industry which is far larger in terms of infrastructure and employment. Americans are a traveling folk, just about no matter what, so heading out onto the highway will be their main choice when needing to visit aunt Gertrude or cousin Bernie a couple of hundred or several thousand miles away. And no they will not want to crowd onto trains or megabuses because those will in short order become terrorist targets themselves. There will appear to be in this case relatively safety in small numbers.

Of course opportunities for terrorism on the highways abound as well, primarily in the form of bridges and tunnels, but a couple of attacks on those soft targets will rile the populace further and smartly ratchet up the savagery of reprisals. The mideast may be a lake of molten glass before Joe Six-Pack, or even Jason Pouilly-Fuissé, will ever be entirely denied the company of Gertrude and Bernie.

Greatly increased road travel and increased expenditures on infrastructure will undoubtedly enrage environmentalists. Understandable since they are presumably smart enough to know that more evil CO2 "pollution" will be released by the usage of millions of cars instead of thousands of airliners. But in two years or six enviro-progressives will have had their turn at bat and the pendulum will swing back in favor of the Big Stick and possibly the Road Trip. I suspect it will do that even in the absence of jihadist mischief but if such occurs the swing will be truly spectacular.

Progressives will have only themselves to blame considering their gormless approach to terrorism as merely a law enforcement conundrum instead of the epochal struggle of irreconcilable ideologies that it actually is. If the jihadists play the progressive political class for suckers then the Pendulum Prez is liable to make George Bush look like Ghandi and "Shock and Awe" seem like tea with the freakin' Queen.

Crass Ceiling

2009-12-22T22:01:00.000-08:00

Let us now consider the F-word. I begin by noting that it is practically a pro-forma rite of passage that middle-aged grumps inevitably feel moved to complain, in print or in whining audibility, about the seemingly relentless coarsening of our culture. I hesitate to indulge but a phenomenon of interest has appeared so here goes.

Just about everyone knows that the F-word has in the past couple of decades reached a level of ubiquity in casual conversation that it has been all but entirely robbed of its ability to shock or to be useful as a forceful emphatic. It has become an all purpose adjective and modifier of virtually every part of speech thus relegating a vasty bunch of colorful expressions to near obsolescence. Further it has become commonplace to the extent that screenwriters use it in irrelevant abundance to give a character's speech "authenticity". It is of course mere laziness to relegate a fine old anglo-saxon scatological emphatic to the same station as speech hesitation fillers such as "uh" and the more recent "like" but what's done is done. It has been so fully devalued by now that a linquistic conundrum has arisen.

That problem is that there are few if any linguistic candidates to take the place of the emasculated F-word. It makes little sense to use it when one has smashed a thumb with a hammer or slammed a car door on a pinky if mere moments before one has used it idly note that, "My f**kin' coffee's gone cold. The word has been entirely robbed of its punch and piquancy by massive overuse and what oh what I lament will take its place as the noisy ejaculation of choice in moments of intense stress or sudden pain? We seem to be "built out" in our language to the extent that we are left severely wanting for some notional uberf**k to satisfy our occasional need for grammatic emphasis greater than the now weak tea that the F-word provides.

We might, and frequently do, resort to profanation to meet the need but that has also been devalued to the point that mere taking the Lord's name in vain just barely gets a flick a PG rating and scarcely seems up to the task anymore.

The inestimable George Carlin averred that cuss words were "just words" and they did not deserve the oppobrium that the stuffed shirts and shirtwaists of the suffocatingly uptight past visited upon them. Well groovy man but if one is going to reduce the (previously) vilest cuss words one knows to the milquetoast ranks of heck, shoot or darn then why bother to use them at all if you rob them of their raw earthy cultural force? If the F-word with its many scatological bethren and profane cousins have been reduced to entirely innocuous adjectives and modifiers then what constitutes genuine cursing anymore?

We appear to be up against it. We seem to have culturally hydrauliced cussin' into a thin muzzy layer smack against the granite roof of the language with no verbal headroom left. A lamentable turn of events but at least the coarsening of the language, if not the culture, has been essentially halted in its headlong flight by coming to the end of the linguistic road. The language simply is unable to oblige with words of greater force anymore.

Adopting from other languages might be possible or inventing new variations like Battlestar Galactica's "frakkin' but neither approach is likely to match the expletive punch of the late lamented "dirty" F-word. Note to whippersnappers: there actually used to be words that were considered dirty enough to not use in even highly impolite company. We allegedly are more enlightened now and those words have been drained of all their useful vehemence. We are bound to miss being able to turn our stress induced verbal volume up to eleven on occasion by using those ancient anglo-saxon "dirty" words. In finding satisfying substitutes for them we may just be, well, f**ked.

The Enemy of Weight

2009-12-07T12:32:00.000-08:00

Review of the 2012 Bridget Roadster from United States Motors
by Dennis Mac Lugage
Car & Track Trends Magazine
May 2012

Aircraft and car designer William Stout is reputed to have said that the key to building a good performing vehicle was to "Simplicate and add lightness" although some say it was ol' H. Ford hisself that put the phrase into Mr. Bill's ear. Whether it was W.S or H.F that said it they were both pikers compared to loquacious Texas zillionaire Sorenson "Sonny" Sanders. Sanders is the genius/lunatic behind the much anticipated Bridget Roadster which is one of the lightest, simplest, and utterly sweetest four wheeled conveyances to roll down the pike in many an over-regulated moon. And if "Weight Is The Enemy" then Bridget has opened up a Lone Star State sized can of whup-ass on it.

Not only is the Bridget light, simple and sweet but it is also something that would have warmed Henry's cockles which is to say cheap. Not cheap in the usual automotive sense of cheesy, tinny, or fragile but rather entirely lacking in any cost or weight increasing frippery that does not directly contribute to the goal of traditional sports car driving enjoyment. The list price is $15,000 which is beyond astonishing in an age when putative econo mobiles are pushing smartly past 20,000 bucks. It is in fact actually cheaper in relative terms than its spiritual forebears such as the late 50s/early 60s bug-eyed Sprites and MG Midgets with not a little of the jewel-like mid-60s Honda SM 600 thrown in. Sanders and his design team have pushed the concepts of light simple and cheap to the outer boundaries of possibility in a time of massively overbearing automotive regulation. Amazingly the Bridget has been designed, certified and is in production on a budget of approximately 100 million dollars. That may be a whacking load of dough for plebes like us but it's chump change in the creating a car company from scratch game.

Speaking of the gummint Sanders is eager to have us know that, "The Bridget has been designed, tested, and manufactured without a dime of any government money, federal, state, county, local or otherwise. And our operation near Houston has received no city tax breaks whatever for establishing our assembly facility. Not only that but the entire company is accountable to no one but me. No stockholders, no dodgy IPO scams, and no milking of the great green federal money machine. It's all my baby and I'm beholdin' to not a living soul--except for my customers of course. "

How how how has it been done? Let Sanders do more of what he does best which is to hold forth at length. "We started this project with several targets that had to be met. First it had to be a two-seat roadster of conventional mechanical architecture and proper sports car looks and handling. Second it had to weigh no more than 1600 pounds. The third target was a horsepower rating of 70 and a torque rating of 100 pound-feet . The last and by far overarching target was that this was to be accomplished at the absolute minimum weight, simplicity and cost possible. Those four obsessions resulted in the Bridget and we are damned proud of our work."

To call those targets obsessions is to rather severly understate the case. Consider the weight. U.S.M. has added a great walloping pile of lightness. At 1600lbs. the Bridget is an astonishing 700 pounds lighter than even the recently introduced "lightweight" Mazda MX5. It is a rather smaller vehicle as might be imagined but it still holds two reasonably sized occupants and has a useful if diminutive trunk. Quite a trick with a wheelbase of 80 inches, a width of 55 inches and an overall length of only 130 inches. It is not a roomy cabin to be sure so if you are, er, width challenged, Miz Bridget will be a squeeze. So be it. A better reason for going on a diet is difficult to imagine. Neither will NBA centers be buying the Bridget. Tall drinks of water over about 6 feet two inches will have a tough time folding up in the cockpit and ducking under the canvas top. I'm not so "challenged" but if I was then if height reduction surgery were any kind of an option I'd be considering it. Sad to say but if you shop exclusively at Big and Tall outlets then you are out of luck. My sympathies.

The Bridget is simple but very deceptively so. What it is in fact is ruthlessly optimized which is not mentioned specifically in Sander's remarks above but is the key to the whole project. Most manufacturers claim that their sundry products are throroughly optimized but current evidence is unconvincing. Virtually every vehicle has ample reserves of strength in both powerplant and chassis design with a view to future upgrades. The very fact that hotrodders can slide a Chevy V8 into the engine compartment of a Miata without it promptly collapsing to the ground is ample proof of this. This tendency is understandable from a corporate cost-control standpoint which makes the tale of the Bridget's design genesis all the more unusual. U.S.M not only set the goals and targets for the design to meet but also used those targets as absolute upper limits in terms of power and strength.

For instance the powerplant is precisely the size and weight to produce the power desired and no larger or heavier than absolutely necessary in any of the components required to do the job, period. U.S.M decided that the smallest lightest, and simplest, unit that would meet the case would be a 1.4L inline four cylinder engine that uses, if you can believe it, two valves per cylinder operated by a single in block camshaft with pushrods. Yes pushrods. How bizarrely retro you might think but consider that the Corvette ZR1's 650 plus horsepower is generated by a pushrod engine and few quibble with the 'vette's go-fast credentials in the supercar wars. In point of fact the Bridget's engine is essentially a quarter scale small block chevy which again might seem disturbingly retro but if there is an engine architecture which has had more development money and hours (countless millions) spent on it I am entirely unaware of such.

All of the engines internals right down to the bearings are sized to support the power produced and no more except for small margins in the interest of safety and service life. The all alloy engine weighs less than two hundred pounds ready for action and produces power in an easy going undramatic manner. 90% of peak torque is available from a mere 1000 revs up to the mild 5000 r.p.m. electronically limited redline. With such a broad band of grunt a five speed transmission is very nearly overkill but the Bridget makes do marvelously with its tiny Tremec 100 unit. The trans is another component that like most on this vehicle have rather the aspect of scale models of various bits. The driveshaft meaures only 1.5" in diameter and the solid, yes solid, alloy rear axle, which looks like it might have formerly resided under a golf cart, barely tips the scale at 70lbs. In fact U.S.M. claims that the Bridget's entire drivetrain--engine, suspension, steering, brakes and wheels dress out at under 500 pounds. Remarkable.

The engine really needs some respectful analysis. Its design runs so counter to practically everything else in an age of hyper-boosted, direct injected, variable valve timed mighty-mites that it seems like something from another age. In a way it is with its pushrod actuated two valves per cylinder design but its very reason for existence is to supply uber flexible broad banded grunt and not howling high-rev horsepower. To hear U.S.M. declare it the motor is the simplest lightest way to the desired torque characteristics that is possible. It is not particularly highly tuned, even for a seemingly stone-axe evocation of a 350 Chevy small block. Its limited valve area, undersquare bore/stroke relationship, and mild cam timing deliver a hundred pound/feet of torque across a band that would do a steam engine proud and the resultant 70 horsepower at 5000rpm is merely a mathematical construct that explains the car's 102mph top speed. It does have a fairly high, 10.5 to 1, compression ratio which is enabled by the alloy head and substantially aids in torque production.

Engines do not produce horsepower. They only produce twist (torque) at the crankshaft and horsepower is nothing but that torque multiplied by a frequency of application (rpm) factor. A 1.4L engine with a peak torque of 100lb/ft is not remarkable. An un-boosted 1.4L mill with that level of torque spread across nearly its entire operating range is extremely rare. Actually non-existent as far as I know--at least in the production automotive world. Equally remarkable is the fact that not a one of this vehicle's drivetrain pieces fell off someone's parts shelf somewhere.

The engine and the Tremec trans illustrates perfectly the genesis of so many of the Bridget's bespoke components. Design and fabrication help was solicited from manufacturers entirely familiar to the hot rodding community such as Flaming River, Trick Flow, Currie, Be-Cool, Lunati, Wilwood, Zoom, etc. etc. U.S.M. was interested in re-inventing the process and not the wheel although ironically the wheels are one of the few non-custom components employed. They are good ol' American Racing Torq-Thrusts shod with Dunlop 185/60/14 rubber which provide hot rod character and plenty, way plenty, of grip. This is actually quite a lot of rubber on the ground for a car this light but U.S.M. decided on the size for the purposes of wide availability, low cost, and adequate pot hole protection which is a particular bugaboo of super low profile rubber. There are even a number of choices in reasonably priced winter rubber in this size which is an big additional advantage, especially for a light car without a limited slip differential.

The Bridget's chassis is alleged to be just strong and stiff enough to do the job, and to meet crash specs. It's likely bendy compared to many hyper stiff modern designs but U.S.M reasons that it is a car and not a block of granite so it's supposedly precisely stiff enough to assure decent handling without a superflous ounce of weight. There is in effect no expansion room in the whole design which is intentional. Quoth Sanders, "We have decided that the Bridget will never weigh more or develop more power than it does now nor will it ever have increased handling prowess which would require any weight increase--period. It's right where we want it in every regard and any changes will be confined to correcting any service problems and improving component reliability. Not only that but the price will never increase faster than the rate of inflation nor will it ever be affected by the creeping gadgetitess that has made so much modern automotive product tantamount to rolling arcade games."

Big talk for an automotive CEO and very odd talk indeed for such to aver that his company's product will never be any "better" than it is right now. Revolutionary talk you might say, even heretical, but if so then we're officially turning ourselves in to the Inquisition for whatever punishment comes our way as long as we can drive to the trial on a winding road in a Bridget.

Let the heresy continue. The Bridget has taken the supposed vice of "de-contenting" and hammer-forged it into a signal virtue. Look in vain for digital dashes, navigation screens, Blue Tooth everything, On-Star, back-up cameras, GPS, hands-off this and voice-controlled that. Instead observe with intense retro-grouch satisfaction the simple six mechanical gauge dash pod (tach, speedo, fuel, oil pressure, water temp, and charge) and the two speaker radio with an actual click on/off volume knob. Nowhere is an idiot light to be found so pay attention or pay the price. The windows roll up manually, the mirrors adjust by hand, and no trace of hydraulics or electrics sully the simple top mechanism. Simple but bloody damned good simple.

Continuing in the retro-revolutionary vein is the solid aluminum rear axle which is supended soley by two composite "leaf" springs and damped by two simple easily serviceable shocks. The leaves may look simple but they are precisely tailored units that have a spiral wound outer layer that renders them compliant vertically but torsionally stiff. Stiff enough torsionally in fact to dispense with the need for a rear anti-roll bar. In fact two leaf springs constitute the entirety of the rear suspension which we judge is only made possible by the modest power level of the engine. It hardly requires an excess of sophistication to handle 100lb/ft of torque on a vehicle with no more than about four inches of rear wheel travel. Final analysis? Simple, light, just right, and so very Bridgetesque.

Disk brakes grace each corner with seemingly inadequate 8 inch solid rotors all round with small single piston calipers up front and even smaller ones in the rear. They're enough though and they do not even sport power assist but, as our press outing revealed, even relatively delicate distaff gams have enough force to reel in the Bridget's speed smartly. Look in vain for anti-lock gear or gadgetry of more recent vintage such as brake force distribution or traction control. No matter 'cuz the brakes are firm, easily modulated and a snap to hold at impending lockup.

The bitty rack & pinion is, natch, just big enough, and is also without power assist which considering the car's weight is not surprising. It's also perfectly weighted, endlessly communicative, and un-twitchy even when the car works its way toward the ton. The front suspension is where some of that de-contenting really pays off by allowing funds to be spent on a proper all alloy wishbone setup the equal of anything on the road. Even the aluminum radiator is just big enough to cool the engine in typical Texas summertime heat. The thing would probably not make a good paperweight. Repeat after me--light, simple, cheap.

The car's styling is properly slab-sided retro but the headlights are faired smoothly into the fenders rather than planted on the hood ala the Bugeyed Sprite. Simple marker, tail, and backup lights adorn the corners and the lights are not, heaven forfend, subject to any delayed turnoff trickery. Of note are three light, simple (natch) alloy rear view mirrors that are hand adjusted. And they stay that way with no flimsy flip-flopping around evident. This only further illustrates the Bridget's reliance on minimal componentry which is solidly, thoughtfully, and lightly built. The Bridget may be inexpensive but not one thing on the vehicle feels remotely "cheap".

The body is decidedly styled in homage to its ancestors, san bumpers of course, and there is even a hint of rounded tail-fin at the back housing the tail light assemblies. The front end is resolutely smiley-faced with little trace of current, regrettably busy in many cases, design flavor. Overhangs are short and trunk space minimal, pack light, but the front fender bulges and rear mini-fins crisply define the corners visually for the driver so slicing and dicing in tight confines is a snap. Bridget may no easier to park than a Smart Car, iMiev, or Toyota IQ but it will have plenty of room to swing wide the doors in most lot slots.

The chassis offer some interesting touches. The doors have twin latches to aid in torsional stiffness and the slim driveshaft tunnel sports a couple of alloy braces along the bottom to further same. The chassis mounts the suspension points directly and eschews sub-frames which must save quite a bit of weight. Most of the seams in the chassis are fully welded thereby adding stiffness at the cost of a few bucks but with the result of adding substantial beef with little weight. Bridget employs a slim eight gallon alloy fuel tank, fuel cell actually, that in the manner it bolts to the chassis betwixt the rear axle and rear cabin wall also contributes to torsional stiffness. Clever sods these Yanks.

The interior is in perfect alignment with the stated mission. Miz Bridget has only one interior to choose from and it is perfectly in keeping with the car's theme of light and "cheap". A single color predominates, call it Stealth Gray, with a few chrome accents to break things up a bit--air vent and gauge bezels, door handles and window cranks. Thinnish but sturdy looking carpet adorns the small floor area and is positioned well clear of potential pedal snagging. The small, non-adjustable, steering wheel is nubbly plastic, properly thick, and four spokes offer proper two, five, eight, and ten hand positioning. I note that care was taken to ensure the correct spacing and height for arm draped on the window sill cruising behavior. Seats are comfy in the modern idiom but lightly bolstered which is fairly irrelevant since one sits confined between the door and driveshaft tunnel. Nothing fancy, at all, in the upholstery but it looks reasonably nice if not flashy and gets the job of holding the driver comfortably in place whilst negotiating the twisties. On the whole things are fairly monocromatic but a driver is supposed to be paying attention to what's going on outside the vehicle not in it.

The shifter sits short and high, aided by a nicely padded arm rest on the driveshaft tunnel, and is in light snicky-snacky harmony with the delicacy of the other controls. Clutch take up is perfectly gradual, no bear-traps needed here to efficiently pass on the mini motors twist to the rest of the feather light drivetrain. The pint-sized engine/flywheel/trans combo has so little rotating mass that shifts never lag behind even gunfighter arms. Miz Bridget is like the perfect sugar cookie, plain but ineffably sweet.

Heating and ventilation are exemplary with copious easily directed airflow to windshield, torso, and especially tootsies which promises to make cool weather top-down cruising enjoyable. According to Sanders U.S.M would have liked to include AC in the package but at a weight penalty of at least 75 pounds and a tab of a thousand bucks it didn't make the cut. The considerable air volume possible through the vents should make top up warm weather driving at least tolerable. Ask me it's a small price to pay but then again I live in Michigan not Texas or Arizona. I don't expect the lack of air-conditioning to be a deal breaker for the intended market of stroker cap and string-back glove wearing retro roadster nuts.

Bridget has a spare no-nonsense cabin to be sure but SUV seating height is not part of the equation. This is by-god sports car people. It sits low, it handles sublimely, it costs squat, and it looks good. Everything else is a piffling detail. As the saying goes just shut up and drive.

Lastly it should be noted that the Bridget is sold with no options save body color. No as in none. Not a one and none are intended from the factory although the aftermarket is sure to respond to the challenge straightaway.

All right enough blathering on about componentry, entertaining as that might be, and on to the car's performance. In a word, sterling. Although you won't be spending much time at the drag strip you'll always be hunting for roads that curve and swoop. The press rollout for the Bridget was in the little town of Kerrville, Texas which is a main gateway to the beauties and the sweet sports car friendly roads of the Texas Hill Country. No less than ten Bridgets, in assorted colors but otherwise identical, were provided and amazingly no one smashed one up although not from lack of trying. The cars relative lack of power and exquisite handling prowess invite diving ever deeper into a turn then nailing the throttle before the apex while trying to deal with the ache of a huge permanent smile etched on one's face.

This particular chunk of the Hill Country has sections with an almost alpine feel to them. This being high spring some of the higher "peaks" sheltered pretty little patches of lupine remindful more of the Rockies than central Texas. At least I think they were lupines considering I was able to only catch a furtive glimpse or two out of the corner of my eye while clipping apexes. Purty pastoral panoramas are swell but the work of dissecting some of the best sports car roads we've ever encountered allowed little distraction.

The Bridget is not darty and nervous despite its slight poundage but it is effortless. As stated above the steering is perfectly weighted and communicative without a hint of twitchiness. The chassis doesn't shake or rattle and it scarcely rolls at all which is remarkable considering the lack of a rear bar. The merest hint of understeer obtains on corner entry but a bit of throttle squirts the car through corners, especially the tight twisties of the Hill Country, with an unlikely mix of delicacy and authority. The emphasis is on driving quickly and efficiently and not terrorizing the countryside with powerslides and artillery loud exhaust roar. Driving the Bridget is not work of any sort. All control efforts, shifter included, are pleasingly un-heavy and well matched to each other--even the accelerator pedal. It is in toto surpassingly easy to drive--light, agile, responsive, endlessly fun and engaging.

The ride is certainly sports car firm but not remotely punishing and the flyweight suspension allows a decent measure of rough road holding compliance. Out on the interstate the Bridget hardly encases one in a tomb like silence but it's not at all bothersome, top up or down. In commuting duties the engine's broad band of grunt means no frantic shifter flailing to keep up with traffic while at speed the relatively tall rear axle ratio of 3.25 keeps the mechanical busyness in check. In other words it's all just right--Bridget right.

Oh yeah perhaps you're wondering what kind of mileage this gem attains. The D.O.T rating is 45mpg combined. A couple of dozen lead-footed scribes were unable to break below 40mpg during the press rollout and we do not doubt that with a bit of hypermiling the far side of 50mpg is possible out on the slab. Ironically great mileage may be the one thing that was not a planned target during the car's gestation. The U.S.M. team knew that a reasonably efficient low powered engine in a very light vehicle was going to be inherently economical so they simply accepted what they got and worried further not.

You will of course go much faster in virtually any high performance product from the likes of Audi, BMW, Porsche, et.al. but you will not have any more fun and for the price of some of those marques' products you can have a Bridget for every day of the week. Unlike our usual review you'll notice little mention of performance specifications. Oh we have the usual info and graphs appended but you won't, and I damn sure don't, care what they say, at all. If ever a mechanical device was greater than the sum of its parts the Bridget is it and talk of 0-60 times, cornering forces, braking distances, etc. is completely, if benignly, irrelevant to the consummately enjoyable package that is Miz Bridget.

Much is made of some vehicles' abilities to almost become one with its driver but the Bridget has to be the little queen of them all. You do not get in the Bridget so much as put it on and then allow your toes and fingertips to interpret the cut, thrust, and curve of the pavement. My capability in the area of laudatory panegyrics is inadequate to the task I fear. Basically I lurve the Bridget and if you don't feel the same way then you have my infinite pity.

I suspect that a viciously fanatical following will spring up following the beginning of sales which is as you read this. I further offer the prediction that the Bridget will inevitably spawn a single marque race series.

Regarding whether or not you'll be able to buy a Bridget in a year or three fear not for Sonny Sanders has very deep pockets and the patience to let the Bridget find its market even if it takes a sizable chunk of time to do so. If the raves of usually testosterone addled and horsepower addicted professional automotive journalists are to be credited then Mr. Sonny's wait is already over. The press worthies assembled for the rollout, who normally yawn at any vehicle less powerful than a Saturn V rocket, were practically gobbling with enthusiasm which is undoubtedly music to Mr. Sander's entrepreneurial ears. On a fun per dollar basis the adorable Miz Bridget may be the deal of the new century--or hell any century for that matter. Get in line. Get one. Make an appointment with your doctor to treat RGS (Repetitive Grin Syndrome). Enjoy.

And oh yeah. Sonny Sanders for President!

Windy City

2009-10-26T11:06:00.000-07:00

No not Chicago but rather Cambridge Mass. The Big O showed up at M.I.T the other day to tout stimulus funds being thrown their way for wind energy research To wit: "In fact, in just a few weeks, right here in Boston, workers will break ground on a new Wind Technology Testing Center, a project made possible through a $25 million Recovery Act investment as well as through the support of Massachusetts and its partners."

Well peachy keen I'm sure and there are likely far less worthy projects, whatever their shovel relational statuses might be, that have lapped up milk squirted from the swollen stimulus teat, damning though that faint praise might be. Among the advantages touted for the Wind Technology Testing Center is that it will be able to test and analyze wind turbine blades as long as 300ft.

Good frakkin' grief. One can only assume that such behemoths are in the offing if testing is being essayed and what a monstrosity such a device portends. A wind turbine with 300 ft. blades will perforce be 600ft wide and will likely stand on a 400 ft. tower which projects the thing 700 ft. into the sky, at a minimum. A hazard to aviation is likely to be the least of such an installation's liabilities.

It is axiomatic in the world of aerodynamics that, in general, the larger the propellor the more efficiently engine power is transmitted to the air. This principle works just as well in reverse with large wind turbines being, again in general, more efficient extractors of power from a moving air mass. With aircraft there is a point of diminishing returns that can result in props that are so large that planes must use ever longer and more unwieldy, landing gear so that the spinning prop tips do not strike the ground. In addition large propellors frequently require gearing to efficiently match engine rpm to the lower more efficient prop speeds required.

Giant wind turbines can turn very slowly while extracting power very efficiently but they are beset by structural problems that suffer from their own sorts of diminishing returns. The longer the blade the more robust the structure required and therefore heavier which is obvious but the loads seen by such structures increase as the cube of their size so needed structural strength also cubes. I am fairly certain that a 300 ft. long turbine blade is at the raw ragged edge of the diminishing return curve or perhaps a bit past it. Such a long structure will have to be very stiff to both avoid destructive resonances and to survive high storm wind speeds that will severely stress all parts of the turbine even with the blades feathered.

Naturally not just the turbine blades will have to be much stronger but so will every other part of the installation which will subject to the cruelties of the cube law. A 600 ft. turbine will likely need to be over three times as strong, and three times the weight of the currently typical 300 ft. turbine. Three times the cost, and possibly much more, is quite likely as well.

The support structure for this olympian wind catcher will need to be far larger and stronger, to put it mildly. The steel pylon holding up this rig will need to be at least 400 ft. tall and likely higher to avoid aero interference with the ground. In like wise such a huge whirly thing will discombobulate the air flow so much that siting another turbine closer than a couple of miles will be inadvisable.

So this mega-puppy is going to eat up a lot of land, several hundred acres at a very minimum. The low frequency high decibel noises it will make may well create seismic stresses in any structure nearby. And there may be significant high frequency noise as well. After all the tips of those football field length blades will likely be hustling along at a couple of hundred mph which implies soprano screams from tortured air molecules. Fun!

A unit this size will likely be able to generate 10 megawatts of power at whatever its optimal wind speed will be. Impressive until one remembers that it will be generating that much juice maybe 20 percent of the time, if it's lucky. Considering that such an installation likely will cost at least 20 million dollars exclusive of support and auxillary hardware that's going to be some expensive watt/hours indeed.

It will require at least a hundred such turbines to produce power similar to a large hydrocarbon fueled powerplant or a medium sized nuclear reactor and of course in practice they will at best produce a fifth of the power of either of those alternatives in any given year. This means that at least 500 of those massive turbines, sited trans-regionally, will be required to equal the yearly output of one large conventional power station. I for one am afraid to calculate the stupendous required mega-tonnages of steel, concrete, advanced composites, aluminum, etc., etc. and we certainly don't want to forget the hundreds of thousands of acres of turbine sites and the thousands of miles of access roads needed for site building, maintenance, and transmission tower routes. What part of this scenario could be considered by anyone to be "low impact"? Compared to all this a nuclear plant lies extremely lightly on its measly couple of hundred acres of land.

Even if it's decided that such giant turbines are unnecessary the need for vast tracts of land and millions of tons of materiel is only aggravated not ameliorated if we are, as eco-warriors relentlessly aver, trying to substantially replace conventionally generated electricity. I assume that said eco-warriors and those in sympathy to their aims are simply unaware of the multi-trillion dollar tab for such bizarre extravagancies or are blithely unconcerned about it. We poor saps who will have to pay the tab for such grandiose fever dreams should damned well be concerned. Exactly how large an increase in our energy bill are we willing to tolerate? A doubling? Tripling? Quintupling?

How far are we willing to go to finance the modern Quixotes' tilting at wind turbines in pursuit of a fraction of a percent reduction of CO2 emissions in the next five or six decades? Millions of over-taxed lower/middle class Dulcineas will almost certainly spurn the eco-Quixotes' trillion dollar affections for the great green romantic energy scams of the 21st century. Oh we love the impossible dream right enough but we're decidedly lukewarm about the insanely expensive and economy destroying dream.

A New Leaf?

2009-10-20T15:11:00.001-07:00

Nissan Corp has introduced, with predictable fanfare, the 2011 Leaf which is an electric only driven vehicle. It's a nice enough looking little package, about the size of a Versa or Honda Fit. Its battery allegedly permits a 100 mile range and can charge back up from near flat in about 8 hours with a heavy duty 230 volt source. The projected price is projected to be, sit down please, a cool 30,000 dollars. And that stiff tariff is after sundry large subsidies from the Feds without which the vehicle might cost from 5-8 grand more. Additionally to add considerable economic insult to injury the car's price does not include the battery! Oh no the lithium battery is so expensive that Nissan has chosen to lease it rather than sell it outright which might well have pushed the price well past 40 grand.

This is far more a marketing move than one that might produce savings since leasing the battery means that that though the initial hit will be lower you'll be paying for the darn thing one way or another. Comparing this with any ICE vehicle is pointless, probably even a Bentley, because the 20K that you'll pay for the Leaf over its similarly sized ICE brethren means that any conceivable "payback" will only kick in at about 200,000 miles--at best.

That 200k miles takes the average person at least 10 years to accumulate, usually longer, so even if you were to keep the thing that long you'll have been paying a battery lease payment the whole time. This would effectively push the payback to infinity.

Electric car boosters are usually at pains to state that such vehicles are not meant to be anything other than commuter mobiles and the hundred mile range would service most commutes successfully. I personally have never known anyone that bought a vehicle, let alone one that cost well over 30K, to do nothing but commute and grocery shop in one's immediate area. Vehicles are bought now, and have been for many decades, as multipurpose devices that can not only get you to work but also to visit aunt Lurline who's a hundred fifty miles down the road in a town with no air or bus service. Virtually everyone has such needs that simply will not be met by vehicles with 100 mile ranges.

It reasonable to expect that batteries will increase in capacity over time and may come down in price although there's not the slightest guarantee on that last point. Clearly electric vehicles are more expensive than conventional ones even without the expense of batteries included.

This should hardly be a surprise. Electric motors, large ones particularly, are not, and never will be, especially cheap devices. The electric motor in your home's central air compressor cost several hundred dollars to replace and it's all of about five horsepower--about one tenth the power needed for a vehicle--and they make millions of the things so most efficiencies of scale have been realized at this point. Add to that fact that electric vehicle motors are in general much higher tech devices that the typical commercial electric motor. Nissan could make a billion of the motors that drive the Leaf and they still could not be sold for a mere few hundred bucks.

Similarly the large lithium based batteries that will power the Leaf and many others may well increase dramatically in capacity but I'm brutally skeptical that they will also at the same time magically cost a lot less to manufacture and sell. Batteries and motors, plus the extremely heavy duty power distribution gear, are large heavy physical systems that simply will not experience the economies of scale that micro electronics do. Not going to happen.

So what we really have here is yet another high priced can of eco-credential polish that will only be purchased by the dedicated greenie, or at least the ones able to afford it. Certainly the bulk of the "working class", that group so allegedly beloved by progressives, will not be suckered into buying pure electric vehicles since they are forced as a group to pay much more attention to a little thing called a "cost/benefit ratio" than their college educated betters apparently do.

A few progressives are fully aware of how overpriced all this new-tech vehicular three-card-monte is. Consequently they are taking the tack that the internal combustion engine, since it always come out the economic winner in comparisons, really needs to be legislated out of existence and which efforts they are pursuing with vigor. That will be the only way that pure electric vehicles make any real dent in our use of hydrocarbon fuels. That this could result in an electoral bloodbath seems not to impinge on the sensorium of the dedicated eco-warrior. The pure electric bag of magic beans will be a tough sell to the penny-pinching blue collar hoi-polloi even if the sundry hysterical predictions of climate change come entirely to pass.

Lotus Land

2009-09-07T21:06:00.000-07:00

Interesting new tech from the lads at Lotus. It's a speculative project they've developed as a "range extender" for hybrids which would normally be a yawn but this is Lotus after all. It's a 1.2L three cylinder engine integrated with a high efficiency generator. It's a highly optimised rig as befits a company with the engineering credentials of Lotus. It's max output is a seeminly mild 47HP but it is developed at a mere 3500rpm which is extremely good for such a small un-blown unit with only one overhead cam and two valves per cylinder. This 47HP peak results in a generator output of 35 kilowatts which is plenty for cruising a small vehicle at probably 90mph or maybe better. This unit is intended to be used as the primary mover of a vehicle by directly powering the electric motors that move the wheels and not as part of a weighty complex parallel hybrid design such as the Prius. This architecture is actually similar to the Chevy Volt but without the need for a huge heavy insanely expensive lithium battery.

It's intended for use with a relatively small battery for acceleration assistance and energy recovery. This setup may well be ultimately more efficient than an equivalent small conventional powertrain because of the energy recovery capability which is one of the few advantages of hybrids. What is interesting here is the engine which is a very simple light "monoblock" design with crankcase, head, and exhaust manifold all in one casting. The whole integrated engine/generator unit only weighs 123lbs--absurdly light but that's Lotus. The design is specifically designed in all its particulars to run most efficiently at an rpm range that matches the output curve of the generator. This is the sort of approach lacking in almost all other efforts which have adapted off-the-shelf gear to do the job.

It certainly makes sense to go this way rather than the current style which has to be horribly complex, and heavy, to blend electric motor and direct engine power. I've wondered a lot whether the direct generation approach would have any advantage over a conventional direct drivetrain setup and with the use of a small battery for energy recovery it just might. If battery weight could be kept at a reasonable level, say a hundred pounds or so, an awful lot of mechanical weight could be eliminated, several hundred pounds at least. Such a setup would use the strengths of both ICE and electric tecnologies to their best effect which is an approach lacking in the current atmosphere of feckless gee-whiz excitement over pure electrics. As always optimization is the key and the engineers at Lotus are unmatched in this regard.

I can see this unit being used in a 2000lb vehicle that might well get 50mpg plus in town and 60-70 on the highway with a huge range capability--and no plug-in silliness. If wheel motors ever become commercially available efficiency should go up even more. A not inconsiderable bonus of wheel motors in terms of bad weather safety and handling would be the relatively simple, low cost, and light weight implementation of traction control combined with all-wheel-drive.

This setup would also address the major, and so far intractable, issue of pure electrics which is battery cost. A battery properly sized for use with the Lotus unit could be far smaller, lighter, and cheaper than even the smallest hybrid battery in use now. Even a lithium version should cost no more than a thousand dollars in such an application which is around one fifteenth of the cost of the battery in the upcoming Chevy Volt and one fifth of the battery used in the Prius. With a complete optimazation of the powertrain and the overall vehicle an extremely useful, delightfully agile, and small slippery coupe could approach the magical realm of 100 miles per gallon--for about half the price of a Volt.

What's disturbing is that the great-leap-forward techno-crack of pure electrics threatens to eclipse elegantly optimized "serial hybrid" designs which are wildly more practical, far cheaper to implement, and pose no threat to the electrical grid. See my August 18th post for further ruminations on this subject.

Bidness

2009-09-02T19:16:00.000-07:00

Folks in the awl bidness, as they say in Texas, are all googly-eyed. BP has supposedly made a huge discovery in the Gulf 250 miles S.E. of Houston. They drilled to a staggering depth of 35,000 feet to tap the field and it's claimed that by 20s it'll be putting out 600,000 barrels per day. That's a whole 50% of the current total Gulf production. Apparently it's the deepest well ever drilled for crude production and not all that far off from the deepest gas wells. So much for the whole silly "peak oil" kerfluffle.

Electric Koolaid, The Acid Test

2009-08-18T09:31:00.000-07:00

Electric, electric, electric. Goodness gracious great googly-moogly balls of electrons! Onward electro-soldiers marching as to war. Somehow, saints presarve us, the advent of the electric car has somehow morphed into what is shaping up, in the progressive eco-weltanshaung, as one of the signal moral issues of the age. At every turn of the media wheel the electric vehicle seems to advance as not merely a panacea for AGW but also in having its severe limitations characterized as necessary penance for the historically criminal depredations of the reviled internal combustion engine.

It's old news by now that Progressivedom is utterly besotted by the alleged looming catastrophes caused by nasty old human beans and that any alternative to the equally nasty infernal hydrocarbon burner is viewed as a potential savior. So electrics are about to have their day in the sun. And it will be a very bright day which will require ridiculously expensive sunglasses. Several manufacturers are promising to have all electric product out over the next couple of years and why not? The meedja, technological doofuses that they in large part are, seem determined to act as public relations flacks for such product. Some tutting is heard over the high cost of these products but one gets the impression that those who might actually be able to afford one of these wallet busting electro-toys should be considered eco-traitors if they don't buy one.

Over and over is heard the refrain that whatever operational defects an electric car might have, and they are legion, that "fuel" will be a cheap proposition. An electric motor is a much more efficient device compared to an ICE in respect to what percentage of its fuel is converted into useful work. Conventional engines hover around 40% whereas electric motors convert around 90% of their input into work. This sounds like a slam-dunk win for the zap-mobiles but is it? It is true that the cost of the juice to move a vehicle a mile is quite a bit less than the pump cost of the same amount of 87 octane bang-water. It is equally true that huge industrial infrastructures are in place to deliver both electricity and motor fuel and that they are of a similar magnitude. If infrastructure cost is a wash then the primary factor in electricity's seeming advantage is that power companies buy truly vast amouts of fuel, frequently on long term contracts, which results in a far lower cost per kilowatt hour delivered to the consumer than is possible for gasoline which is purchased retail a few gallons at a time at the local Stop & Rob. And yes gasoline delivers the equivalent of kilowatt hours as it is burned.

The question then, for the more analytical eco-warrior at least, is whether electric or gas vehicle power results in the actual burning of fewer pounds of hydrocarbons per actual mile driven. This is what should concern the noisy advocates of electric power and not how much it will cost the consumer to get down the road although this fact is certainly part of the present soft sell. Finding out such information is not easy and believe me I've tried. Tellingly electro-advocates do not trumpet such information and I suspect it has little to do with how available it is but rather how disadvantageous the comparision with gas power is in reality.

Instead, with a nod, a wink, and a head fake we are blithely assured that the stupendous additional amounts of electrical energy needed for any putatively sizable plug-in fleet can easily be accomodated by a head-long, cost be double-damned, bugger the nay-sayers gigantic increase in wind and solar power. Funny thing though. After several decades of wind and solar power development, increasing to near frantic levels in the past decade, their combined contribution to the nation's energy needs has reached an essentially irrelevant one percent. To increase that percentage to relevant levels will require many thousands of multi-million dollar wind turbines and/or thousands of square miles of solar cells and several trillion dollars. Which of course we have laying around now in massive unused dollar heaps since the federal government has been so parsimoniously judicious in handling the economy.

The possible cheapness of EV fuel aside very few advocates of alternative transport methods make the claim that the public will actually save money by employing them. In fact to many if not most alternative fuel activists the mere mention of economic viability is considered extremely bad form. Any condideration of filthy lucre whatever is seen as a near criminal "distraction" from the holy mission of saving the planet and any public pushback on the issue stirs calls for more intensive "education" of the obstreperous petit-bourgeosie. Indeed the breaking of the bank, and the back, of the criminally wasteful western lifestyle is not seen as lamentable by-product but rather as a laudable goal in itself.

The need for additional electrical energy in this, and most countries for that matter, will increase no matter how many environmental tantrums the political class may throw. No prodigies of conservation, period, will alter this fact and neither will that fact be altered by exhortations, however strident, of wanting society to return to some allegedly halcyon juice-less era such as the 19th century. Not gonna happen bunky, not even if the seas rise a thousand feet and the average temp in Reykjavik is the same as in Phoenix today. The need for juice will only increase whether or not the wildest catastrophic fever dreams of climate-change hysterics come to pass. Even if, contrary to AGW hysteria, the climate actually cools in the next century the need for more electricity will relentlessly increase. The developing world in particular will drive the increase regardless of the self-righteous bleatings of Malthusian garment-renders who would deny them the privilege in the holy cause of defeating AGW.

So where's the voltage going to come from to run our lappity tops, high SEER fridges, HD flat-screens, and our oh so au courant cruncy green juice-mobiles? Those who think that blanketing the entire midwest in 400 foot tall wind turbines or covering Arizona in solar cells will be our saving grace are not part of, as progressives style it, the reality-based community. Neither will the need be met by ethanol, bio diesel, clean coal, wave generators, fuel cells or any other of the legion of "low impact" ideas that range from merely impractical to outright crackpottery. In the long run, in the decades and centuries from now long run, our electrical energy needs will only be realistically be met by large increases in the horrid N-word.

Nuclear energy, whether it be generated by current conventional fission means or the commercial development of fusion generation will be powering the 21st century and the centuries beyond until dilithium crystals or some other unimagined breakthrough occurs. This is the really real reality whether or not any given "community" is on board with the whole idea. Really large increases will be required along with huge expenditures but it is the only truly "renewable" energy source that will minimize, if certainly not eliminate, land use issues, power density issues, load response issues, and lastly but perhaps most importantly, grid reliability issues. Modern ultra-redundant fission reactor designs exist that should reduce to inconsequentiallity most safety concerns and self-sustaining breeder reactor designs that reduce or eliminate the past problems of such devices are already in use. Fusion reactors are a technological Gordian knot that may well be cut in the next few decades but their commercial viability will likely not come to pass before the middle of this century. Consequently self-sustaining super safe fission designs are the best medium-term bet. Interestingly those who seem enamored of all things Euro-centric somehow ignore or dismiss the French solution which is of course that they generate 80 percent of their electricity by nuclear means.

The whole nuclear waste issue has a far greater political dimension than a technological one with rampant NIMBYism being a severe operational constraint.
It remains to be seen if this societal revulsion will stand forever if the lappity tops and big-screens, not to mention the juice hungry EV chargers, begin to regularly brown-out. We'll see but at least nuclear energy is a proven reliable and low land use generation technology that requires no trapeze-act bets on its technological viability. One large nuke on a couple of hundred acres of land can generate as much or more power than a thousand giant wind turbines occupying hundreds of thousands of acres and it can do it when the sun don't shine and the wind don't blow. It may not be any cheaper on a kilowatt/hr. basis than any other method but on a kilowatt per acre basis it reigns supreme. Also as a complete system nuclear power's carbon footprint is about a low as is imaginable which should impress the AGW alarmist community a lot more than it apparently does although this may be starting to change.

If you count yourself among those forever adamantly opposed to nuclear power regardless of need then perhaps you should forego that shiny new electric vehicle that will serve only hasten the day when nuclear energy must inevitably prevail.

Social Studies

2009-08-05T17:05:00.000-07:00

A seeming epidemic of eye-rolling, snorting and sneering, and general snarky comment appears to have affected a number of members of the progressive chattering classes. The causus rolleye is the carping of sundry complainants that the gargantuan, and entirely impenetrable to the layperson, new health care bill is unvarnished socialism in its bulk and particulars. Prog. pundies declaim it's no sech of a thing and to aver that it is simply fearmongering by right wing grumps.

Interestingly to declaim such is to concede a major point to conservatives who are more than happy to trot out the word socialism for any legislative agenda that has even a pale tint of collectivist intent. In a post just south of here I ruminated on the banishment of the word communism to the dustbin of historical rhetoric based on the fact that good sober progressives and even wild-eyed liberals could never consider themselves "communists" because they were as horrified as anyone by the messy, brutal, repressive and generally unsavory nature of the two biggest "Communist" nations; the U.S.S.R. and the People's Republic Of China. We's good people so we ain't no commies.

The word socialism seems headed in the same direction but there are some important differences in the shunning of the label as compared to the commie slur. For starters the word socialism conjures up in many conservative noggins not tyrannical despotism but rather economic lassitude and cultural enervation. Donning this dull mantle is a non-starter so leftist salons shun the apellation with gusto preferring to declaim newer more trendy and less rhetorically hoary goals such as multi-cultural vibrance, economic justice, and environmental stewardship.

What's the old saying about things that walk and quack like Donald and Daisy? Well presently the political sky is black with hordes of legislative Order Anseres who upon landing in the marbled halls of Congress are waddling and quacking to raise the roof. Perhaps they have tattoos on their beaks, sport corn-rowed feathers, and drive electric cars when not migrating but their essential socialist duckness still obtains.

Protestations of un-duckiness are merely good PR spin. Embrace of the S-word would not play well in Peoria, sell in Sun City, or tingle the toes of Topekans. Openly socialist rhetoric might be da bomb in Berkely and pop corks in Cambridge but of such perfervidly activist niches is not a national mandate made.

Nah to sell the agenda to the rubes ya gotta go with such indistinct neologia as "efficiency", "fairness", "justice", the now ubiquitous "save the planet" exhortation, and the newly minted incantation "bending the cost curve". Some seriously fancy dancing is going on to label provisions in the health bill anything and everything but socialism. This obfuscatory fandango notwithstanding if the sundry touted wholesale increases in government control of the health care system don't amount to a virtual textbook example of socialism then the word ceases to have any meaning. Expunging meaning from words, or changing the meaning by political fiat, is at the least classic Orwellian doublethink and at the worst simply lying through one's teeth.

A recent Newsweek cover story, "We Are All Socialists Now", avers that "If we fail to acknowledge the reality of the growing role of government in the economy, insisting instead on fighting 21st-century wars with 20th-century terms and tactics, then we are doomed to a fractious and unedifying debate. The sooner we understand where we truly stand, the sooner we can think more clearly about how to use government in today's world."

I choose debate, however unedifying or fractious, over passively lying down as our alleged betters proceed with the task of figuring out how to "use government" in ways more pleasing to nuanced Euro-sensitivities that view increased government control of our lives as an inescapable inevitability.

We all desperately need to honestly ask this question of ourselves. Is there any facet of our lives, of any sort, that we think should be categorically ruled inaccessible to governmental control regardless of any contingent circumstance? This is quite possibly the main question of our age. Think hard about it. Please.

One Quart O' Goodness

2009-07-27T12:44:00.000-07:00

There are a fairly healthy number of vehicles built in Europe and Asia that are known collectively as the "Liter Class" This refers to cars whose engines displace approximately one liter or about 60 cubic inches. Naturally these are all small vehicles but there is a wide variety of machinery from which to choose despite this "limitation".

Until the advent of the Smart Car the last vehicle with an engine that small was the FIAT roadster of the late 1960s and early 70s. The feisty little FIAT 850 was a blast to drive, had a handsome Bertone designed body, and it sold reasonably well. FIAT nixed the aging platform in the 70s and replaced it with the somewhat larger X1/9 roadster in the late 70s which was sold until FIAT fled the U.S. market in the late 80s. The encroachment of federal emissions and crash standards resulted in a serious weight gain from the 850's initial 1600lbs. to the X1/9's far porkier 2200lb. bulk. Ironically by today's standards this would make it among the lightest vehicles for sale in the U.S. today.

The 850 Spider originally had an 817cc engine rated at only 49HP but had a top speed of 90mph and would achieve well over 30mpg. This was hardly a rocket but the straight-line performance was on a par with a stock original Pinto and its Italian bred handling was a joy. Interestingly the engine size was, at 49cu.in., exempt from early emission regs that did not require engines smaller than 50cu.in to be in compliance. The reasoning behind this was unclear, possibly this rendered most motorcycles exempt, but nevertheless FIAT took advantage. Later the engine size was increased to 900cc which brought the full crushing weight of Uncle Sugar's regulatory iron fist down upon the neck of overseas manufacturers. This weight is principally what forced FIAT from this market and it will return only under the aegis of its merger with Chrysler.

There are many models sold in the European or Japanese markets that are not imported here because of the differences in the regulatory morass imposed on the U.S. auto industry that do not obtain abroad. These differences are for the most part entirely inconsequential but they are differences and that rules out U.S. certification. Converting an existing European spec vehicle to precisely conform to federal D.O.T specifications is an expensive and lengthy process that is rarely undertaken by U.S. or even Japanese manufacturers. Some, such as Mercedes and BMW build bespoke American versions of a number of their models but the percentage of vehicles sent to the U.S. is a fraction of what is available on the other side of the pond. There are also numerous car models built for the Japanese market that never see the light of the sun rising over the U.S. Most "Japanese" cars sold in this country are built here by and for Americans and most of them are not sold in Japan, especially the big SUVs and trucks.

Suffice to say that there are a large number of models that will carry two people, and sometimes four, that weigh on the order of 2000 lbs or less, have engines of around one liter of displacement, and achieve anywhere from 40-60mpg that are not for sale here. Aside from the considerable issues of federalization it has been accepted by most marketing types that Americans simply won't buy vehicles that small in numbers sufficient to promise profitability. After all it doesn't actually cost any less to build a mini-car rather than a subcompact, or even a mid-size, but folks in general will not pay the same for vehicles of differing sizes. Even high fuel prices affect this lamentable, to many, tendency only somewhat.

So the current situation is that car manufacturers are faced with increased govermental coercion to smartly increase fuel economy without building much smaller vehicles and without compromising crashability. This will be a very tall order indeed. Hybrid technologies promise to increase economy without too much of a performance deficit but they come with a high cost in weight, complexity, and naturally purchase price. A rock bottom minimum figure is in the range of $5000 and as vehicle size increases this cost escalates rapidly.

U.S. manufacturers are left with little recourse but to sink resources into trying to make larger vehicles get much better mileage since Americans won't buy small cars for prices that confer any profit potential and to make matters much worse their task has hugely complicated by the regulatory jackboots of the progressive climate-change political agenda. Time and fuel prices would alter this equation in something resembling an organic process but the new administration insists on a hot-house forcing of mileage stretching technologies irrespective of any economic considerations. An I do mean "irrespective". Fripperies such as "profits" are deemed entirely vulgar by those consumed by climate-change hysteria and anyone with the temerity to bring up such "irrelevancies" is perforce branded a traitor to the planet.

Many other countries' vehicle fleets do better mileage-wise than in the U.S. but this has been primarily due to extremely coercive tax policies that have resulted in fuel prices as high as three times what they are in the U.S. Progressive pols would love to do this but if they were seen as being responsible for the tripling of fuel prices then they might lose the votes of even the most radically green constituents or at least those who have an actual job to which they must commute. So to avoid electoral suicide they are attacking the "problem" from the other end by mandating big jumps in fuel economy in a short period of time from the manufacturers who can be conveniently painted as moral criminals if they resist. Seven dollar a gallon gas may not sell in academe and other liberal bastions but beating the drum of corporate villainy is ever popular. Even the auto firms that for whatever reasons have not been forced to take the King's Schilling suffer the same regulatory browbeating that the bailout recipients are being forced to endure.

Some keen little machines are on offer in the Orient and on the Continent but however slick and fuel efficient they may be it will be some trick to force U.S.buyers into dealerships to buy similar product if they do not want to. Progressives can attempt to ban a great many things but good luck to them in getting the opbstreperous and fickle U.S. public to want to buy vehicles that they do not like. I personally will welcome the U.S. advent of vehicles such as the Fiat 500, the Toyota iQ, and other such pint-sized, with quart sized engines, bumblebees. I do not dislike small cars, quite the opposite, and in fact have no brief against them whatever but I do not make the mistake that Prog. pols are doing by projecting (and then forcing) my likes and wants onto others in the pursuit of highly debatable policy objectives.

To the true fascist temperament it is not the least bothersome that the "people" might require being dragged kicking and screaming into lockstep adoration of all things good and, frak help us, GREEN.

Light Fantastic

2009-07-15T17:57:00.001-07:00

Time for some new auto tech people.

Ford Motor Company, along with scientists at, oddly, the University of Liverpool, have reportedly developed a new ICE ignition system that replaces the venerable spark plug with, wait for it, lasers. The laser pulses will be delivered by fiber optics and will be able to ignite a gas/air charge farther down in the cylinder which should increase efficiency. Also it is claimed it takes less energy to power the laser than a conventional high voltage ignition system.

Foidamoah the fiber optics will have the additional quirk of being able to "observe" the combustion process in the cylinder and "report" back to the ECU which will make appropriate changes in the timing of all the relevant events.

Outstandingly cool tech if it turns out to be true. What is likely is that it will be fairly expensive to implement, really expensive to replace or repair, and entirely out of the league of the good 'ol shade tree mechanic. It would have to increase combustion efficiency quite a bit to be worth the expense but it does sound promising. Such a high level of combustion initiation may give an engine the ability to run more efficiently on a variety of fuel types.

In other tech news the swells at Mitsubishi plan to field a pneumatic valve actuation system, similar in kind to that used on Formula One engines, that will supposedly have the advantages of the problematic electromechanical systems that have been in development. Interestingly they report that the system extracts more power from the engine as speed increases, just as valve springs do, and that it reaches parity in those terms at higher engine revs. So no big cigar there but it will still have the timing flexibility that is sought in having a valve actuation system separate from crankshaft rotation.

In most engines the crankshaft mechanically drives its camshaft/s mechanically via gears or chains. Very basic stuff and this method has worked well for a hundred years in thousands of different engine designs. Unfortunately a camshaft can only really be completely optimized for its job over a fairly narrow range of engine rpm. Below or above that rev band any engine's performance is compromised to some degree. Much tech wizardry has been employed in recent decades to achieve "variable valve timing" via purely mechanical means with varying degrees of success.

The idea of being able to operate an engine's valves entirely independently of the restrictions of conventional systems has been a holy grail of engine designers for some time now. Many efforts have concentrated on using electromechanical systems, magnets basically, to achieve this but success has been elusive. An actuator stout enough to slam open and close a valve thousands of times a minute and with the finesse to finely time those events has proven very tricky. Pneumatic systems have had more success, in cost-no-object racing engines especially. Nothing simple about any of these systems, to put it mildly, which has made implementation, even in exoticars, uneconomical.

Mitsu has apparently been able to get around some of this complexity and looks to apply the tech to engines in the near future.

It strikes me that a completely variable valve timing system could benefit big motors much more than small ones. No matter what its valve timing a 2 liter engine isn't going to have the torque capability of an engine two or three times that size. With internal friction coming under much better control these days and with all the ignition, injection, and other tech coming on stream the possibility of a large engine acting very much like a small engine in cruise mode is greatly enhanced but will instantly be able to deliver whatever power level is demanded. A five liter V8 could conceivably get nearly the same highway mileage as a two liter four cylinder. With sufficient developement that V8 could conceivably masquerade as a 50mpg fuel miser and if demanded (by your right foot) it could ramp up power instantly to tire shredding fury when needed or wanted. None of this may ultimately matter.

Climate hysteria has made hybrids, pure electrics, and alternative fuel vehicles into media darlings with endless inane blather about "sustainability", "green jobs", "low carbon footprints" and "reducing our reliance on foreign oil imports". Our new administration is completely seduced by the crunchy green groovitational fabulosity of it all and is in maximum coercion mode these days as they attempt to hammer-forge the auto industry into "compliance" with an endless laundry list of dubious and costly enviro-flummery. What all these progressive techno-scenario rearrangers do not seem to be familiar with is basic math which inconveniently tends to put a damper on the high-flying grandiloquence of self-righteous savers of the "planet".

In the progressive new math two plus two equals six if you include the inevitable government subsidy of two. Hardly surprising when one has an attitude that social engineering trumps actual engineering. Progs are busy attempting to convert a vehicle purchase from a mere exercise in consumer preference into a litmus test of one's environmental saintliness. And it's hardly only the province of automobile purchasing. Every class of consumer product is feeling the green lash of government bullying as climate hysteria is used as pretext for unprecedented control of everything we eat, drink, drive, or use for any purpose whatsoever.

Sorry for the digression into the political swamps but it is becoming plain to me that even if a gasoline powered vehicle could be made that got five hundred miles per gallon and its exhaust could be used as room freshener the soggy proggy 'tude that regardless of any efficiencies achieved that in the whole and the parts of their malign influences hydrocarbon powered devices are prime despoilers of the sacred planet. It's a cultural divorce action. We proles must be forcibly separated from our reliance on four-wheeled stinkmobiles and any diminution of our freedom of movement is just unfortunate collateral damage in the grand hubristic "fight" to avert climate change. Of course few pols are dumb enough to actually say that even if some of their more radical constituencies are convinced of it.

So the fact that the internal combustion engine is managing to stay ahead of the technological curve by getting ever cleaner and more flexible may not matter to those who consider the very concept of a cost/benefit analysis a grubby remnant of the old discredited and exploitative mechano-cultural Eurocentric hegemony. A blast of laser light may be able to pierce many things but preening environmental smugness is not one of them.

RINOcerous

2009-07-06T10:54:00.000-07:00

The House recently passed the Waxman-Markey bill and sent it to the Senate for consideration. Not a single congress critter claims to have read the whole thing and that's not hard to believe since it's around 1500 pages long. Go ahead and dip a toe in. Read any small piece of it, any part or parts at all. It will become immediately obvious that this "cap and trade" legislation has far grander intentions than merely addressing climate change. Indeed in its whole and parts it is easily the most grandiose, the most far-reaching, and the most stupefyingly minutial invasion of the affairs of the private citizenry that has ever been attempted. In fact it makes the New Deal seem utterly conservative and libertarian in its scope.

I recently read a column by, of all people, the actress Victoria Jackson (a seemingly unlikely commentator to put it mildly), on the website Big Hollywood that dared to use, as she called it, the C word. That word is "communism". If ever a word was more deserving of scare quotes it escapes me but she and a few others may be on to something. Certainly use of the word conjures up the HUAC, the blacklist, Tailgunner Joe, Alger Hiss, and three fourths of a century of red-baiting by a long list of pols & pundits labeled "paranoid right-wingers" by an equally long list of progressive solons and panjandrums. With some, if far from full, justification the word communist in the 40s and 50s became a convenient shorthand for "bad" in the way that fascist is used today--merely code for "something we don't like."

So "communism", whatever any academic considerations as a system of government there might have been, became code for dictatorial repression and insidious anti-American dealings rather than anything that would have ever crossed the minds of Marx and Engels.

It would be difficult to find in the fuzzy logic of Das Capital or the "Communist Manifesto" any apprehensions or approvals of the 70 year long human tragedy of the imperialist expansionist utterly dictatorial Soviet regime. Indeed the Soviet Union's suppression of the private sector and its embrace of the most inefficient sort of command economy ever attempted was the most proximate cause of its eventual collapse.

Apologists for ideas of socialism and communism are heard to say from time to time that we don't know that communism doesn't work because it's never been really tried outside the environs of a totalitarian state. I'd rather not get into that endless debate but suffice to say that a "command" economy is labeled thus because obstreperous humans have not proven keen to participate in great numbers in such schemes absent the presence of the metaphorical and literal gun barrels of an overwhelmingly repressive police state. No it hasn't worked so far but rollerskating elephants, perpetual motion machines, and supersonic flying pigs have not eventuated so far. Indeed I expect to see all of those absurdities occur before the first successful command economy comes to pass.

These days even elements of the far fringes of the socialist, and even unabashedly Marxist, world view seem to think that since they consider themselves "good people" who are so filled with the light of tolerance and diversity that they cannot in any way be considered as "Communists" since in their minds that requires the full apparatus of a coercive police state run by evil "bad" people and they are above all that messy sort of thing. But seen in terms of the ideals of the original socialist and communist theorists we are coming closer and closer to implementing many of those collectivist visions which have been rehabilitated and dressed in the brightly inclusive and multi-tolerant robes of modern progressivism. Expunging not only the words socialist and communist but also tying sundry "necessary" collective actions to the hysteria of climate-change has resulted in a wholesale emotional defanging of the socio-communal bugbear of decades past.

And no I do not believe there is some putative "international communist conspiracy" behind all this collective action. There may have been one at one time but if so its spectacular incompetence, in economics especially, doomed it to failure. No we're all much more "enlightened" now, supposedly immune to the specter of a Soviet style police state. "How droll, how old-fashioned, how 1950s" we now dismissively declare. Consequently as long as we can claim that we are not "communists" (i.e. bad people) and are convinced that we are neck deep in a full blown climate crisis then any action, any at all, however extreme and intrusive, is perfectly acceptable for a cause as noble as "saving the planet". In this enlightened state of grace any insistence on applying outmoded "labels" on such activities is seen as either reactionary fiddling while the planet burns or simple inchoate villainy.

So now governmental intrusiveness on a scale that would have embarrassed Uncle Joe or Mao and astonished Marx or Engels is seen by many as vital to the long-term survival of humanity. Oh please I hear you say. Get real. Couldn't be that bad. You're just an old cold warrior, reactionary to the core, un-nuanced, unlettered, and one of those witless goobers who deny the "settled science" of climate change. Hmmm. Read Waxman-Markey, if you dare, and then get back to me on my pathetic delusions.

I suspect, sincerely hope, that Waxman-Markey will be gutted in the Senate. It will be if anyone bothers to read the bloody thing. And any Republican who votes for this thing might as well just switch parties as the same time for no one with even the remotest pretense of a conservative mindset could ever vote for this galloping herd of progressive hobbyhorses all of which will require truly unprecedented federal coercion to implement. One can only hope that the Blue Dogs will outnumber the RINOs and consign this grandiose boulliabasse of progressive overreach to the seventh circle of heck. If it does pass mostly intact by some anti-miracle then I recommend you start searching for a federal government job immediately for few others will be particularly safe.

Perhaps you might comfort yourself with a variation of a catchy mantra adopted by certain right-wingers back in the 60s. To wit: Extremism in the defense of the environment is no vice.

Deferential Analysis

2009-06-08T17:14:00.000-07:00

El presidente has nominated the race-conscious, aggressively multicultural, non-constructionist, and unapologetically liberal Judge Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court. In virtually all ways she is the anti-conservative, an avowed leftist in matters judicial and otherwise. Why would any sentient being be remotely surprised by this.?

Sundry Dem. gloaters have more than once used the phrase "We won" as justification for this that or the other policy prescription. Perhaps it is crass and graceless of them to do so but it is nevertheless true. They did win and are now pursuing the project of rearranging the political landscape to their likeing. They are doing precisely what they promised to do if elected. Any unseemly haste may have to do with a nervous apprehension that the body politic may reject them in the next election cycle so they might as well make as much hay as possible while they can. This apprehension is entirely merited.

The American public elected the most liberal president in the history of the republic less out of enthusiam for the progressive agenda of sweeping change and more because of dissatisfaction with the previous administration. That McCain was about as not-Bush as was possible in the Republican party was largely beside the point. The inchoate wisdom of the public was to "Throw the Rascals Out". That the same public may be suffering from severe buyer's remorse in a couple of years is, well, too damn bad. It's not as if every conservative pol and pundit wasn't shouting the alarm that the One was a doctrinaire leftist whose ideological proclivities were a vast distance from anything resembling a centrist outlook. That message, media obstruction notwithstanding, did in fact get out but 53 percent of the electorate either approved of Obama's openly displayed progressivism, did not really believe he meant it, or was seduced by his elevation to celebrity godhood.

Sonia Sotomayor is a perfect example. A person of such thoroughgoing progressive/leftist inclinations has not ascended to the court before but she is in perfect tune with Obama's weltanshaung. She is his ideal candidate and will be confirmed even if a few blue-dogs have to hold their noses to it. A bit more problematic is the parade of progressive policies, national health care, climate change legislation, massive bailouts of sundry description, wildly escalating goverment spending, etc. etc. These will have to pass through the congressional saugage grinder before implementation but a president can only jawbone for passage of a bill. He can do lots more than jawbone for a Supreme Court nominee.

It is the constitutional privilege of a president to nominate anyone he chooses and there should be at least some deferring to his judgement on the issue. Not that the Democrats have exhibited any of this deferential attitude but they've they certainly should have for no other reason than what goes around comes around. Even as the talk pundits rail against the new nominee some respected conservative pundits, such as the inestimable Charles Krauthammer, have maintained that a certain amount of deference is a gracious mature attitude to have.

He's right but he's also firmly in the camp that believes, as he has said, that "elections have consequences". Well the consequence of the public's dissafection with the Bush administration may be the enabling of an attempt at a wholesale overhauling of the political, cultural, and economic fabric of the country. Dem. lever pullers may well have not realized they were abetting such but Obama was certainly no stealth candidate. His progressivism was not only not hidden but indeed was/is worn on the empathetic sleeves of his crisply tailored suits. To have thought otherwise was to engage in major league wishful thinking. To any in that 53 percent who might be feeling a bit fretful or alarmed there can only be this advice. Tough. Suck it up. Pull the other lever the next time.

It can only be hoped that any long term collateral damage that results from this fusillade of progressive artillery accrues more to the Democratic party than to the country in general but of course we shall see. In the meantime it may only be necessary for the Republicans to sit on their hands and whistle a happy tune as they wait for vindication in 2012. Progressive overeach may well do more for conservative electoral success than overt and noisy disapproval ever could. On the other hand it may not be too early to print up bumper stickers that say "Don't Blame Me. I Voted For McCain."

Mulish Borat

2009-06-03T12:07:00.000-07:00

A woman has sued the witless and desperately unfunny Sasha Boren Cohen claiming his idiotic stunt at the MTV Awards left her disabled. This is a craven and all too typical misuse of the legal system so beloved by a legal culture that has lost all touch with anything resembling common sense, personal responsibility and proportionality. It is an insult to everyone and I hope she is relentlessly pilloried in the press for this gross malfeasance. I also hope she wins--big.

Department Of Fear

2009-05-31T14:25:00.000-07:00

T'was last week when the big O stated that after 9/11 certain decisions were made in fear rather than in foresight. He said this with the usual implications that his administration is far more intelligent, nuanced, and in general more sober and cooly collected than those knuckle-draggers in the previous administration. All too predictable but it set me to thinking about how the word and concept "fear" is in such bad odor these days.

FDR averred, in what is arguably his most famous quote "All we have to fear, is fear itself". I have always thought this was a statement of truly breathtaking puerility. It is the null set, without meaning, and just plain stupid for there is one heck of lot out there in the world to which a response of fear is entirely warranted. Lately though progressives, and even some conservatives (although to a far lesser extent), have rendered "fear" into one of those inchoate pejoratives that are used to bash an opposing opinion. Any expression of serious concern, about any subject, is portrayed as "fear-mongering" as if fear is somehow now an emotion unworthy of serious intelligent people, such as themselves of course.

The "fear" in FDR's case was the public unease over seemingly intractable decline of economic activity in the country despite, or because of, Franklin's alphabet-soup programmatic ministrations. This is not entirely an unwarranted view since economies can easily be severely affected by the investing public's emotional state which can make a small market downturn into a panicked selling spree that perversely achieves what an ordinary small downturn may well not have portended. The Big O, and countless others, have extended this metaphoric chestnut to include, well, just about everything else.

There was, after 9/11, and there still is to put it very mildly, a great whacking lot of things about which extreme concern, or fear if you will, was entirely appropriate. A rundown is not necessary but to aver that we should not have then and should not now be "afraid" of, say, Islamist fanaticism is to engage in willful ignorance and/or over reliance on multi-culty feely-goody we-are-the-world modern progressive pieties.

Just as there was plenty to fear from the Third Reich and Japanese Empire in 1942 there is plenty to fear about today's irrational nuclear bomb toting thugocrats in North Korea and Iran not to mention a grubby parade of both state and non-state actors who threaten peace and freedom around the globe. Now naturally it is possible to overreact to such threats but to say that fear of them is an illegitimate basis for policy is childish political posturing.

It is waggishly said that the modern progressive's idea of an enemy is someone to which we have not yet sufficiently apologized. In other words there is no hatred of the U.S. which cannot be ameliorated by official mea culpas of sufficient intensity and finesse. This seems to be one of the defining attributes of what is called "soft power" these days. Since this implies a nearly complete eschewing of what used to the epitome of "hard" power, the threat of the employment of the U.S military Big Stick, it is sure to turn out that soft power is only a Planck length away from no power at all. Soft power may thrill the European Union but will only receive sneering laughter from the likes of Ahmedinejad and Kim Jung Il. It will also signal further cultural weakness deserving of renewed vigor from the likes of Al Queda and Hamas.

I can just imagine the response of the hip, evolved, nuanced O-Team to the events of 9/11-----

After the obligatory wringing of hands the administration leaped into action by seating a "Blue-Ribbon" commission, composed of experts across the political spectrum from hard left to slightly left of center, to study the causes of the attack. After three years of cogitation a report was issued which recommended the immediate deployment of a task force with two main objectives.

First our Military Airlift Command was to be used to fly in several battalions of diplomats and PTSD therapists to the relevant Middle-Eastern precincts. The job of the diplomats was to locate and personally apologize to the relatives of the brave pilots of the aircraft who were driven to such unsavory extremes by the long history of U.S. policies that have oppressed Arab peoples and given support to the reviled Zionist Entity.

Brigades of PTSD experts attempted to help the relatives "process" their feelings of grief and shock over the unfortunate loss of their loved ones by using the full armamentarium of modern psychotherapy. Free personal and group sessions for a period of at least twenty years were offered by the U.S. government in atonement for its manifest crimes against the Umma.

The second objective of the task force was to transport, with full logistical support, several thousand specially trained legal experts to help distraught relatives file class-action suits against Boeing Corp. for being criminally negligent in building commercial airliners which would unaccountably burst into massive fireballs when inadvertently flown into skyscrapers. Settlement of the suits resulted in the establishment of a Fund Of National Apology which was financed by a ten million dollar tax per aircraft built by Boeing, and of course all other aircraft firms whose products failed the crucial safety test of being able to impact large buildings at 400 knots with no loss of life.

This fund, eventually totaling 500 billion dollars, is now responsible for a full .0001% of Saudi Arabia's GNP. Terrorism is now effectively managed and minimized by the requirement than any terrorist wishing harm to U.S. interests, and to achieve subsequent qualification for FONA disbursements, must be thoroughly vetted by the departments of State, Justice, and Homeland Openness before permission is granted to target selected right-wing hate groups. Targeting of other than approved extremist conservative organizations will result in automatic disqualification from the program.

The Middle-East loves America now.

Red Meanies

2009-05-25T09:41:00.000-07:00

Just read Krugman's Monday NYT editorial wherein he laments the parlous state of California's huge budget deficit and finds that the main villains in the state's massive budget deficit emergency are, surprise surprise, Republicans. Presented as damning evidence of this turpitude is the passage of Prop 13 three decades ago that restricted and capped tax rates which of course is seen as the lovechild of stingy heartless conservatives. Nowhere to be found in this perfervid condemnation is any mention of the Democratically controlled legislature's grandiloquent spending proclivities. Apparently in the progressive weltanshauung the only responsibility that conservatives, and the public, have is to move whatever mountains necessary to fund whatever spending initiatives that happen to bemuse the political class at any given time. Any unwillingness to increase tax rates, and to tax whatever the heck will stand still for it, to pay for whatever the lege has decreed can only be seen as gross fiscal dereliction.

Of course when any new monies are spent by government, new programs instituted or new agencies created funding is of course needed. When this funding is spent the effect is, always, to create not merely an agency or program but a constituency of hundreds, thousands, or even millions of persons whose lives, livelihoods, and votes become an automatic self-interested brake on efforts to dis-establish or reduce funding for those programs. This is precisely why new programs and initiatives should be subjected to extremely rigorous cost/benefit analysis studies because once a program is funded and becomes entrenched in the overall bureaucratic scheme of things the chances of getting it defunded, even in the plain face of abject failure, are microscopic.

Progressive legislatures seem to have no awareness whatever of the law of unintended consequences that mitigates so heavily against grandiose spending plans with the goal of social engineering (or these days actual mechanical engineering) of one kind or another. So naturally the embedded constituency consequence is of no more concern than any other. Naturally when the budget crunch comes and cuts loom these constituencies scream murder most foul as well they might when so many lives have been rearranged in response to the initial funding effort. That this problem might be mitigated on the front end never ever ever intrudes on the thought processes the progressive social engineer.

Additionally in the past couple of decades a disheartening percentage of those of putative conservative bent have been convinced to go along with these plans. In the conservatives' case this is at least partly due to the unwillingness of some to be inevitably painted by editorialists, pundits, and the mainstream media as grumpy skinflints who do not "care" about whatever problem a given legislative initiative is purported to address.

Progressives seem to think that "caring" about a problem, or the people troubled by it, is the sole arbiter of worthiness for any programmatic response. Caring trumps everything so consequently anyone grumping about the expense just doesn't care about the supposedly terrible problem. Further anyone with the temerity to care about a program's cost is painted as engaging in "War" whose forms include the War on the Middle Class, the War on Women, the War on the Poor, the War on Unions, etc. ad nauseum.

Everyone of any given political bent questions and occasionally ridicules the principles of its opposition but frequently it seems that progressives don't really think conservatives have principles but only a kind of organized meanness, a reflexive disdain for the tribulations of anyone but their rich patrons, and a inchoate hatred of any person of color. Consequently any resistance based on fiscal sanity can be conveniently ascribed to one or all of the above odious proclivities. The fever swamps of the right attempt to use the same rhetorical tactics but clearly have been far less successful in legislative terms than the equally fevered swamp denizens of the left. If this were not the case then state and federal budgets would fractions of their current bloated sizes.

So in effect any attempts at fiscal sanity by conservatives are tarred as gross moral malfeasance by progressives instead of anything as noble as principled opposition. How, they think, can opposition to increased taxes on the rich be seen as anything but haughty disdain of those who aren't? Well of course it can be seen as principled but one has to navigate away from the aforementioned swamps to the rather more erudite, and I hate to say it, nuanced, regions of the polisphere such as National Review, The Claremont Institute, and Commentary Magazine. In such places you will find reasoned analysis, appropriate historical context, and little or none of the ad-hoc name-calling and profanity laced frothings of both far left and right. As a not inconsiderable bonus you will also find good writing.

Look up and read these guys: Charles Krauthammer, Jonah Goldberg, Thomas Sowell, Rich Lowry, Mark Steyn, John Derbyshire, Norman Podhoretz, Amir Taheri, Peggy Noonan, Heather MacDonald, Christopher Hitchens, Victor Davis Hanson, Hirsi Ali, Ramesh Ponnuru, Larry Kudlow, George Will, Kenneth Minogue, David Pryce-Jones, Arnold Kling, and last but hardly least, William F. Buckley, the only posthumous inclusion in this list which is woefully incomplete but as good a starting point as any. Principles in abundance, intelligently explicated and stoutly defended you will find and free of profanity and grubby name-calling. Enjoy, and learn.

Hey You

2009-05-20T09:31:00.000-07:00

Yeah you--youse guys who are so terribly concerned that we must at all costs avoid any man-made climate change. Are you serious? By that I do not mean "are you kidding?" but rather are you actually personally doing anything to advance this grand overarching agenda? Have you junked (not traded in) your old gas guzzler and bought the smallest most fuel efficient vehicle sold in this country? Do you bicycle at any and all possible opportunities to avoid using fuel? Have you quit driving across town to eat or see a movie or visit friends? Do you now forbear to drive/fly that 50/100/200/500 miles several times a year, to visit aunt Bessie or your parental units or your kid in college?

Have you moved out of your comfy 2500sq.ft. house and moved into a minimalist 400sq.ft. apartment in some hyper-efficient warren? Have you quit taking hot showers or using the oven or replaced everyone of your tungsten light bulbs with compact fluorescents or ceased your backyard grilling? Are you faithfully recycling every last scrap of anything remotely reusable? Do you check the box that ensures you will be provided only "green" or "renewable" electrical power at a substantial increase over what is charged for normal? If that is not available have you lobbied incessantly for access to this renewable goodness? Have you given up your cell phone, Ipod, computer, flat screen tv and turned your summertime thermostat up to 80 degrees?

Have you cut all saturated fats, sugar, simple carbohydrates, food preservatives, animal protein and dairy out of your diet? Do you only eat organic locally grown produce? Do you eschew all plastic bags at the grocery, or any other, store? Do you always compost all your organic waste?

Have you chosen not to do all, or a large percentage, of these things? Have you not made these choices because they almost all diminish your preferred quality of life? Do you think that all these things are good ideas but since not everyone will choose to do them are you hoping that a flood of governmental fiat will force everyone to act thusly and relieve you of any personal responsibility?

Is the threat of climate change not severe enough for you to do all these thing on your own in a gesture of planetary goodwill? If you have in fact done all those things are you resentful of those who have not and approve of sundry coercions to force them to do likewise? Do you approve of this coercion, of even yourself, in the name of climate change? Is not the dreaded specter of climate change enough for you to take all the aforementioned actions without being forced to do so? If not then why should governmental coercion be used to force actions upon others which you yourself will not contemplate without said coercion? Have you given any thought to what all this coercion might do to the commercial and cultural/intellectual fabric of society?

Do you acknowledge the concept of a cost/benefit ratio or do you hold that no price is too high and no coercion too severe to avoid deleterious climate change? How much of your income are you prepared to devote to the service of this campaign? Ten percent? Twenty? Fifty? Eighty? Do you think that, since you do not consider yourself so, that only the "rich" should have to pay for all of this? Do you think that there are enough rich people available to be converted into the un-rich in pursuit of climate change goals? Do you think that big increases in the tax rates on the well-to-do are not only necessary but vital for "economic justice"? Do you think that removing trillions of dollars from the private commercial sector and injecting them into the public sector will have only salutary effects on the world's economies?

Do you ever think about any of this at all or are you simply content to pull a lever in the voting booth and hope that your "betters" will "do the right thing"? Have you done any substantial personal independent research into any of these complex issues or are you content with environmental pressure groups, progressive politicians, public broadcasting, and vociferous celebrities doing all the heavy intellectual lifting?

Finally is the very concept of personal responsibility sinking into the quicksand of the all-encompassing embrace of the ever more intrusive national state? Probably. Wave bye-bye the truculence and chaos of unaffordable personal freedom and say hello and yum-yum to the socially nutritious nipple of the wet-nurse future. Ah but it'll be worth it. Won't it?

Schwarz Wie Ich

2009-05-05T18:39:00.000-07:00

It is perhaps the most poignant irony of our curious and allegedly post-racial age. The election of our new chief executive understandably elicited panegyric joy in many quarters because of the historically tangled and oppressively sordid treatment of those of kindred skin color and cultural mien. All well and good and it seems to me that the country has been "ready" for a black president for a couple of decades but it has taken time for a personage of sufficient personal and rhetorical suitability to plow his/her way up through the tangle of local, state, and national politics to be in position to take advantage of this putative readiness.

Part one of our irony is of mild interest because Obama hails from the burgeoning black middle class and not the poorer underclass which although seemingly powerless nevertheless drives much of the cultural conversation these days. This should hardly be surprising. Few if any previous presidents sprang abruptly onto the national stage without either having relatively patrician roots ala FDR and Thomas Jefferson or having clawed their their way up the political ladder like Abraham Lincoln and Harry Truman. So just as we are completely unlikely to elect a president who looks and sounds like Larry the Cable Guy we are equally unlikely to elect someone who looks and sounds like 50 Cent. No disrespect to either fellow but showbiz operates under vastly different rules than polbiz.

Any presidential candidate must be minimally presentable and articulate or he/she will not have the remotest chance of attracting a majority vote. This is a simple and uncontroversial statement of fact and to think otherwise is extremely foolish. Obama is considerably more than minimally presentable and articulate which led some grumps to kvetch that he was not authentically black enough, whatever the blistering devil that's supposed to mean. A patently absurd, not to mention grossly insulting, slur and in the end had no effect whatsoever thank goodness.

Irony part deux rears its head when attempting to puzzle out one of the central contradictions of our increasingly muddled cultural milieu. To wit: Countless billions of dollars and over a hundred fifty years of educational effort have been expended in the broad, overarching, and thoroughly reasonable project of convincing the white majority population that the not-white minority population is as worthy of respect and freedom from discrimination as anyone. It's been a long hard road to be sure but in large part that mission has been amply accomplished. Having just elected the first minority president should devalue most complaints that this mission has manifestly not been accomplished but of course that is too much for which to hope. Most amusing of all, and heart of the irony, is that after the herculean cultural labor of convincing everyone that blacks are not only just as good as anyone else, and in essence no different from anyone else, big chunks of the electorate have been convulsed with triumphalist satisfaction over the historic election of--someone just as good and no different from the rest of us.

I do not doubt that a goodly number of folks think minorities are in some way more deserving of the reins of power because of having, as a resourceful and determined subculture, found many ways to ultimately triumph over an oppressive historicity. Many think that the long struggle has perforce imbued minorities with a manifest elan vital, a more elemental self awareness, and a deeper attachment to the core of our humanity. Perhaps this is all true and perhaps Obama has benefited to some degree from these imbedded, if rather inchoate, tropes but that residue of perhaps guilt driven goodwill can not, and more importantly should not, last very far into his term of office.

For now is the time to president of all the people all of the time. He must be the leader of the United States of America, the Big Dog with the Big Stick, the stern defender of liberty and law in a chaotic world much of which will have little truck with either, and proprietor in chief of the world's most important economy. That residue of goodwill due to an oppressive history may grease the skids a bit in this country but will have close to zero resonance in the larger world. Obama is gravely misguided if he thinks that the rest of the world ultimately takes cognizance of any fact but that he is the President of the United States of America. Others will tolerate, love, or despise the country for their own reasons and will be entirely unimpressed by his historic ascension and even less by his soothing inclusionist Euro-centric we-are-the-world I'm way cooler, smarter, and nicer than Bush overseas stump rhetoric. All the toothy sharks in the world tank will not be much mollified by throwing Happy Meals in the water.

No soaring rhetoric, Obama's included, is sufficient to make the world universally love us much less universally cooperate with us. It is to be hoped that he realizes that even if the grasp of it rankles or even horrifies that the awesome Big Stick he holds must be seen as ready to be wielded as a backup for the blundering ineffectualities of the U.N. and much of the world's despots' sneering disregard of diplomacy however honeyed the language. So he should chill with the international mea culpas to start with and concentrate less on dancing with the progressives who brung him and more on being a firm responsible no-nonsense clear-eyed leader of the world's most powerful, richest, and yes despite all wailing to the contrary, nicest country.

Also it's the most desirable place to live as conclusively witnessed by the fact that we have a serious immigration problem and a non-existent emigration problem. In 2006 155,000 citizens emigrated from Germany, 200,000 from Britain, and 50,000 from Sweden. U.S-born citizens out-migrating that same year? Under 500-out of a population as large as all three of those countries combined. Unsurprisingly a large percentage of those Euro-emigrants headed here. If Obama is so enthralled by what Europeans think then perhaps he should restrain his impulses to recreate the U.S. in the image of what so many seem to be fleeing. Lastly I wonder if Obama has realized that however enlightened he considers Europe the odds of someone who, as he smugly quipped to a German audience, looks like him, getting elected as leader of any country there are exactly zero. Perhaps U.S. civil rights organizations, having slain most of the dragons here, should start overseas mission programs in Berlin, London, and Stockholm.

Numbers Racket

2009-05-04T12:07:00.000-07:00

April car sales figures are in and are predictably dismal compared to '08 but there are some surprises.

Unsurprisingly the Big Three are down 30-40% but the shocker is Toyota down over 42%. Many small car makers are down more than this. Suzuki for instance is down a whopping 73.7% which is at the bottom and is a worse performance than even the reviled Hummer brand. Mitsubishi tanked at over 56% down but bottom-feeders Kia and Hyundai were in relative clover at only about 14% down. Mark ye well for further analysis--cheaper car brands in general lost less market share than more expensive ones. Not smaller just cheaper.

This absolutely and irrevocably proves the falsity of the proposition that Detroit is tanking because it does not make the small fuel efficient cars that "people want to buy". Utter rubbish. I actually yelled at the car radio the other day when an NPR reporter stated that Chrysler was in bankruptcy because they have had fewer small efficient cars for sale than many others. Tell that to Toyota and Suzuki. What the hell sort of self-inflicted blindness is it that makes journos so immune to the fact that a deep recession makes sales of big-ticket items like vehicles drop dramatically? This oft-repeated trope seems to be a version of what is called the Big Lie, that is something that upon even cursory examination can be shown to be entirely false but if it is repeated often enough most people will believe it.

It grows ever more tempting to succumb to the fevered allegations of a liberal media conspiracy but it is bloody hard to figure out what the devil this deliberately misleading reporting can possibly be expected to accomplish. If it isn't deliberate then it is merely complete stupidity but that's pretty hard to believe about NPR if not about mainstream media talking heads. NPR's credibility on this issue is now precisely zero and anything further they have to say on the subject will be automatically suspect.

Of course I have my suspicions about NPR motives but have had a difficult time believing they are that craven. Perhaps this is only because of 30 plus years of using them as an information touchstone and alternative to the NBC/CBS/ABC news hegemony of the 70s and 80s. Personalities such as Susan Stamberg would always give me the warm fuzzies even if I happened to personally know what they were saying was utter bilge and I was aware of little overt agenda advancement. Either I have become much more keenly aware of such tendencies or NPR/PBS have gotten far more unapologetically blatant than the were 20-30 years ago. Naturally I acknowledge the proposition, beloved by progressives who can't control it, that the internet can be a poison of the soul but the web is hardly the exclusive playground of conservatives-far from it. I don't credit talk radio because I listen to so little of it.

I am reluctantly forced to admit that the bulk of the broadcast evidence clearly demonstrates a progressive/liberal bias and NPR has now well and truly earned the snarky sobriquet of National Progressive Radio. Not so much because of what is said but because of what so often isn't which is any serious countervailing view. I am extremely nervous about stating such suspicions for fear of being lumped in with far more, er, lumpen conspiracists.

First of all the denizens of the publicly funded media are almost without exception reasonable sounding, sober, almost genteel folks who make a great show of bending over backwards to present more than one point of view. The nagging problem with this is that the opposing points of view usually range from very liberal to, at best, progressive-centrist. To wit: Every Friday E.J. Dionne and David Brooks are interviewed about events of the week. E.J of course is unapologetically progressive as befits an NYT true believer but the Grey Lady's tame house conservative Brooks is supposed to putatively represent his philosophical opposition.

They do in fact differ but this difference is equivalent to the gap between Nancy Pelosi and Joe Lieberman who are both Democrats, and generally progressively inclined, but one is rhetorically far to the left of the other. Only at NPR is David Brooks considered a serious conservative counter voice, a risible attitude in any remotely erudite conservative circles. Not that Brooks doesn't frequently have interesting things to say but it's just too bad, and emblematic of NPR, that this supposed diversity of opinion represents the distance from the middle of the sidewalk to the curb and falls far short of the rhetorical other side of the street. Considering the fact that NPR seems to swim gently in a warm comforting sea of Progressive pieties whilst incognizant of the world of contrarian air above perhaps we should be grateful for even this attempt at "diversity" of thought.

Getting back to my original subject the venality of the American auto industry seems without question to qualify as one of those given progressive tropes. This alleged venality has bloomed in the Progressive mind into a sordid combination of outright villainy and feckless incompetence because of Detroit's reluctance to fall on its sword to help advance the climate change agenda steamrollering through the progressive polity. Apparently the Big Three must be punished due to their roles as oppressors of the working man and heedless money-grubbing planetary assassins. They must meekly atone by designing the small fuel-efficient vehicles that "people want to buy" which is a course of action proven entirely without measurable result if the reported sales figures of all major automotive firms are to be believed.

In this case Bill Clinton's first campaign nailed it with the well remembered crack that "It's the economy stupid". A bad economy equals bad car sales--econ. 101. Unfortunately that course must not have been part of the core educational curriculum of journalism or political science majors. Or perhaps it was but is being ignored in a pursuit presumably more noble and holy than mere commercial trade, that of "saving" the planet. Rarely have such ambiguous ends justified such stupendously bone-headed and expensive means.

Pillar To Ideological Post

2009-05-03T12:33:00.000-07:00

Just watched author Chris Buckley on C-Span and was amused by his assertion that he, in response to a viewer question, considers himself in the oh so au courant and rarified ranks of the "post-ideological" and the "post-partisan". This presumably means that having had a patrician gut full of intractable conservative "ideology" he has moved on to a more "nuanced" position vis-a-vis his political zeitgeist. Christopher was on Book TV was to promote his latest tome 'Mum and Pup and Me', a love letter to pere and mere Buckley whom he greatly respects and admires despite their "flaws". The main flaw that fil Buckley seems to have inherited that he is entirely too eruditely full of himself (and I say this as a great lover of his pitch-perfect comic novels).

It has recently become the tactic of a few extremophobe conservative erudites to consider themselves as having epiphanically ascended from the grubby ranks of the God-fearin' country-lovin' illiberal foot-soldiery to the Olympian realms of the post-ideological pragmatist. Not for them the stubborn intransigence of sticking to long-held principles in the stark face of sweeping electoral rejection especially when the current Big Chair occupant is one that you'd be far more at ease having over for cocktails at the Bar Harbor Yacht Club than the alleged knuckle-dragger previously occupying said chair. Which is an irony of nuclear megatonage considering that the current chair sitter is a black Chicago ward-heeler and the previous sitter the holder of impeccable New England family credentials--but I digress.

This is a choice to which I have not the slightest objection but what I wonder is how this can any any fashion whatever not be an "idea". That is to say how is this non-ideological and how for that matter can having any strong opinion on any facet of politics, economics, or culture not be considered "ideological"? If you have an idea of how things should work then you have an ideology--period. You may dislike other ideologies but to claim that you have none is puerile sophistry at best and intellectual preening at worst.

I am not aware of any injunction that the inhabitants of any particular segment of the poli-sphere be best buddies. Ol' Bill B. his own self loathed such as Strom Thurmond and George Wallace but even he would never have characterized either as liberal or heaven forfend, progressive. Which only proves that the conservative "big tent" is a lot roomier than is haughtily averred by liberals/progressives. If Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Joe Lieberman, Jesse Jackson, and even, urk, Janeane Garafolo can be considered to noisily occupy one tent then why may not another shelter William Buckley, Mark Steyn, Fred Thompson, Alan Keyes, Ron Paul and, urkier, Pat Buchanan?

Obviously it can and does and there may even be a few uncomfortable points of overlap. It's a perilous no-man's land in between the tents however and to attempt to occupy this political Alsace-Lorraine is trying, as I should know, at the best of times. It is true that my philosophical cotangency with progressives is far far slimmer than conservatives but as I've stated before I like to think that I've stood relatively still while the progressive tent has pseudopoded off in directions little to my liking while contrary to the wailings of many the conservative tent population distribution stands about where it has for many decades. The primary difference between now and say the 1950s is that due to our overwhelming information culture we hear a whole lot more about everything and that of course includes the fever swamps of the political landscape. So they tend to loom larger psychologically even if these swamps command the allegiance of no greater a percentage of the population than they ever did.

To this observer there seems to be more introspection and self-criticism inside the conservative tent as time goes on and less in the progressive/liberal tent. The C-tent may even be more "inclusive". One can consider himself a conservative and yet be off-put by conspiratical Paulists and completely revolted by hard-core Creationists. It is far more difficult to abide in the Prog/lib tent if one is for school choice, or anti-abortion, or queasy about same-sex marriage, or indeed to exhibit a similarly contrarian range of opinion that would not result in apostasy from conservative ranks. All that centrist grumping aside there is nothing whatever about any political position that is not manifestly ideological.

So declaiming oneself to have matured past ideology, and its meritricious handmaiden partisanship, is nothing more than using the terms as pure pejoratives divorced from any real meaning. Thus we see/hear that ideological=bad, partisan=bad, fascist=bad, reactionary=bad etc. This is what might be characterized as the Stewart/Olbermann/Maddow school of political analysis which is gaining currency at the same rate it is sinking out of sight of epistemological coherency.

Every one of every stripe, Commie, southern conservative, country-club Republican, fascist, socialist, Creationist, tree-hugger, Reparationist, Know-Nothing, feminist, deconstructionist, liberal, progressive, etc. etc. etc. is a flippin' ideologue. If you don't have ideas you're, well, dead, and have nothing further about which to trouble yourself. Even if you are a squish and have a metaphorical foot in several camps that constitutes an idea does it not? Which leads to the ultimate pejorative use of the word which is that if you are disinclined to change your position to sway reed-like in the political flow then you are an "Ideologue", i.e a bad person.

My bad.

We Are The Pols Who Cain't Say Yes

2009-04-20T11:40:00.000-07:00

White House chief of staff Rahm Emmanuel recently stated that Republicans have become the party of “no,” “never,” and “no new ideas.” The deployment of this prog-forma snark is akin to accusing water of being wet since Republicans, at least putatively, are supposed to be political and economic conservatives whose inherent world view is one of skepticism to new, untried, and potentially highly dangerous or foolhardy "ideas". They have not "become" the party of No but rather have always to greater or lesser degree worn that appellation with pride.

In fact the godfather of the modern intellectual conservative movement, the inestimable William F. Buckley famously charged his fledgling National Review magazine with the injunction to "Stand athwart history yelling Stop!" Progressives of all stripes, now and in the past have regarded this tendency with reactions ranging from haughty disdain to voluble profanation. Progressives like to paint themselves as thoughtful pragmatists and conservatives as sinister "ideologues" which is usually taken to mean grumpy reactionaries whose "ideas" are not only nugatory but fatally mired in the less enlightened past.

So in reality conservatives have plenty of ideas it's just that progressives despise them. The Rahm sneer would have a bit more resonance if the "ideas" that are currently being fetched up against the political wall were any "newer" than the first part of the last century. A standard litany of long floated progressive policy prescriptions hardly counts as new thinking. Indeed most of these "ideas" have been shopped around for the better part of a century without having passed substantial muster in conservative, moderate, or even centrist liberal circles. Presumably the "We Won" attitude snarkily percolating through liberal policy salons somehow qualifies a tired collation of sundry well-worn New Deal and redistributionist mantras as "new thinking".

The gyrocopter, the flying car, the Edsel and cold fusion were new ideas. They were also spectacularly and variously unworkable, unsalable, or irrelevant ideas. The newness of an idea confers no special inherent quality of goodness, efficacy, scientific accuracy, or even sanity.

So little wonder that Republicans balk at all this "newness". They now seem significantly more no-ishly conservative than before for the simple reason that the new administration is significantly less so than any in living memory. Indeed the One's outlooks and demeanors makes the Clintons look like gravely sober-sided center-rightists by comparison.

Last fall I voiced the hope that sitting in the big chair would make the One face global realities in a manner at some grown-up remove from his puerile electioneering. That faint hope has permanently dissolved in the face of his recent Apologiapallooza Tour and his fawning glad-handing of sundry tin-pot thugocrats. His politics have lunged smartly past the water's edge and swept leadenly around the globe in the pursuit of "engagement" with our putative adversaries. Much of recession plagued Europe has spurned this engagement for their own parochial, and entirely warranted, reasons but it has played most marvelously well with such liberty loving stalwarts as Ahmadinejad and Chavez.

On Le Front National the new admin. perches over a wide-mouthed legislative funnel flooding in not only oceans of fiat cash but also a gullywasher of progressive programmatics in the hope that something makes it out the narrow end past growling rottweiler paleocons and gimlet-eyed blue dogs. Luckily, as has been the case since the founding of the Republic, liberal action provokes an equal and opposite conservative reaction. Being a reactionary is, as they say these days, not a bug but a feature of conservatism without which said Republic would be infinitely worse off. As I have averred in this space before partisanship is to be celebrated not bemoaned for it is the life-blood of representative democracy.

Of course much indignant huffiness is on display by the liberal punditocracy now that the dissent is on the other foot. Apparently upon the moment of the One's ascendancy a switch flipped and dissent promptly transmuted from the highest form of patriotism to the last refuge of scabrous reactionaries. Naturally the Mother Of All Bombasts, R. Limbaugh, is to be vilified to the greatest extent possible for having the temerity to wish for the failure of the One. Ignoring for the moment the widespread context-free reporting of his oft-stated contrarianess at the very least it can be counted as a form of the dissent so recently held bosom close by liberals.

Of course even a whiff of actual context explains El Rushbo's remarks nicely. I dare anyone, liberal, centrist, conservative, libertarian, anarchist, what the hell ever to disagree with the proposition that wishing for the failure of policies with which one heartily disagrees is anything but plain old freedom-of-speech in action. No one wishes for Obama's failure per-se, not even Rush, and certainly not the failure of the country, but how can anyone be expected to entirely separate an individual from his political proclivities? Goodness knows GWB was relentlessly vilified and heartfelt wishes for his abject failure on every front sloshed freely about the progressive poli-sphere.

This is scarcely a new phenomenon and dates back at least as far as five minutes after George Washington's inauguration. Political infighting and voicing hopes for the failure of one chunk of legislation or the other is the true name of the game and not a lamentable anomalous happenstance. As far as conflating a leader and the the State goes we benighted Colonials have not for a goodish while ascribed to the notion that a politician may legitimately channel the Sun King and declare "L'etat, c'est moi". The proper response, in current parlance, is "Oh no you ain't".

Ah well at this point one is forced to quote noted political analyst Johnny Mercer from his seminal work on policy issues, Lil' Abner:

Them GOP's and Democrats
Each hates the other one
They's always criticizin'
How the country should be run
But neither tells the public
What the other's gone and done
As long as no one knows
Where no one stands
The country's in the very best of hands

T-Bone ForTwo

2009-04-14T09:51:00.000-07:00

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety has just issued a report with the stunningly expected conclusion that small cars are less safe than large ones. Shocking. It appears that however much the feds think they can issue coercive mandates to the auto industry they are having a hard time repealing an inconvenient truth known as the Conservation of Momentum. Mass x Velocity equals Mass x Velocity is not just a good idea. It's the Law. And it is inviolate, unassailable, and entirely immune to the quivering high dudgeon of progressives and their relentlessly Procrustean regulatory handmaidens.

One of the Institute's cases in point is the Mercedes built Smart ForTwo. It's about half the size of an old VW Bug but yet it passes all currently relevant crash resistance regulations. No doubt this is due in large part to Daimler-Benz's stellar engineering expertise but not even those perfectionist worthies labor under the illusion that the ForTwo, or its assorted teensy brethren, can come out anything but second best in a tangle with one of Mercedes hulking 2.5 ton autobahn-burners. All of this is of course, er, crashingly obvious to anyone with a greater awareness of physics than the average three year-old or the Democratic Senate leadership. And permit me to humbly apologize to the brighter toddlers out there for the comparison.

During the late unpleasantness, defined by progressives as anything done anywhere anytime for any reason whatsoever by the Bush administration, sundry prog. pundits styled themselves as being part of the "reality based community". This rhetorically risible rodomontade revved to the redline in the consideration of any Bush effort to wed idealism to the promotion of policy objectives. The very mention of such shop-worn concepts as morality, patriotism, duty, or democracy elicited responses varying from eye-rolling snickering to brutally mocking derision. Bush, and anyone who even faintly acknowledged the importance of the aforementioned, were un-sophisticated, un-nuanced, hayseed boobs--conservative Clem Caddidlehoppers.

Well the reality-based community seems to the entity courting boobery when confronting actual realities such as the laws of physics. We must must must only sell cars that achieve wildly improved fuel economy and simultaneously we must must must make them as safe as a presidential limo in putative smashups. Any vehicular product not possessing both these entirely contradictory attributes is tarred as a death-trap and prima facie evidence of gross moral turpitude and/or criminal negligence on the part of the manufacturer.

Now it might in fact be barely technically possible to construct a vehicle with the size and fuel efficiency of the the Smart Car and the safety of its 450SEL big brother. What it would not be is commercially palatable. A vehicle, any vehicle of any size, as inherently safe as big Mercedes products are, will inevitably cost as much to manufacture. In the case of the small car it might even cost considerably more to build in similar crashability. No one, not even the most obsessively green car loather will be induced to pay 70 grand for something the size of a Smart Car even if it got 300 miles per gallon and could be launched Thelma & Louise style off Dead Horse Point without the occupants suffering so much as a widdle boo-boo.

Back in the real, the really real, world small cars command prices that do not now and never will allow them to be built and sold for prices similar to large luxury sedans regardless of their capabilities. Not going to happen no matter how noisy the indignant stamping of progressive feet becomes. Even the Smart Car pushes the envelope to the extreme. It sells for prices that will buy much larger but still smallish sedans with very acceptable levels of fit, finish, safety and reasonable levels of efficiency. In addition they are far better suited to the usages and exigencies of being driven on U.S highways and byways. Traveling across the country in a Smart Car is possible but will be more trial than trip. Compared to a Smart ForTwo a bottom-end Hyundai Accent is a luxury car and it sells for many thousands less.

These realities matter little to the progressive political classes who, now having the whip hand, seem determined to use the automobile as an unwilling instrument of social change. Whether they can summon up enough cultural muscle to force consumers into buying tiny expensive high-mileage vehicles that are inherently less safe than larger ones remains to be seen. The only hope in this whole scenario is that the UAW has enough political muscle left to get the gummint to lay off Detroit lest the companies crater entirely and take the union's life blood with them into oblivion.

Auto-Da-Fe

2009-04-05T15:14:00.000-07:00

--or literally "act of faith" which may be one of the most spectacular euphemisms of all time referring as it does to Inquisitional burning at the stake. GM CEO Rick Wagoner is the latest heretic to feel the wrath of the Lord High Inquisitors of the new administration. Veteran COO Fritz Henderson took Mr. Rick's place and must be feeling less like a CEO and more like the next guy over in the tumbrel. In any case Wagoner surely must have known when the process of beseeching the feds for a bailout began that it would inevitably lead to him being required to fall on his sword.

Whatever benefits accrue to being CEO of a major corporation the act of ascension to these giddy heights must be tempered by the fact that one is effectively stretching out ones neck on the executioner's block. Even the abjectly penitent CEO's donning of the dollar-a-year hair-shirt fails to keep the hounds at bay these days. Now the exec must channel Lewis Carrol and attempt to achieve six impossible things before breakfast. Detroit execs are being coerced into not only figuring out how to become profitable in a deep recession but also to somehow find the ocean of cash needed to drastically increase overall fleet mileage, reduce CO2 emissions, increase safety margins, increase recyleability, cut labor costs without actually cutting jobs, and to "invest" in new untried and to date unprofitable electric power technologies. Not surprisingly every one of these mandates is effectively contradicted by most if not all of the others.

The Obamanation has ganged up on the auto manufacturers for the simple reason that it affords them the opportunity to jumpstart their grand overarching agenda of fighting climate change in ways that merely propping up financial institutions can not begin to do. Flinging countless billions at Wall Street is a major and costly annoyance whereas the political PR value of bashing Detroit cannot be denied because the Big Three stands second only to Big Oil in the progressive pantheon of corporate villainy.

They can get away with this because the general public has little idea of how the auto industry works or how huge the regulatory burden with which they must deal. Unfortunately most politicians have very little more understanding of these issues and progressive pols not only know very little but care even less. The exigencies of modern product development cycles and cost-effectiveness considerations are mere trifles to be brushed aside as either niggling irrelevancies or venal corporate foot-dragging. In effect the auto industry is guilty until proven even guiltier.

It must be a source of severe irritation for the O'nation that the auto consumer is proving so un-obligingly consistent. In a recession with sales off roughly 40% overall the most popular vehicle is still the Ford F150 pickup truck. Folks are buying far fewer vehicles but the mix of those vehicles that are selling is virtually the same as a year, or two or three, ago. So the administration's tactic is to browbeat manufacturers into no longer offering what the public clearly wants to buy and to force them to begin making vehicle lines that currently consumers in large part do not want to buy.

As Rahm Emmanuel has said it would be wrong to let a crisis go to waste. The crisis is touted to be severe recessionary auto sales drops endangering big chunks of the country's industrial infrastructure. So let us give Detroit City the cash they're begging for but let us not waste the opportunity to hold their feet to the fire in service to the progressive regulatory wish-list held in abeyance until the ascension of The One to power.

Thank goodness Ford has not yet taken the thirty pieces of silver so there might be hope for Henry's heirs. Regarding GM and Chrysler they, if they survive at all, bid fair to become wholly owned subsidiaries of the Federal Government who in good, green, and union approved, fashion produce nothing anyone wants to buy at prices no one can afford.

2012, and/or sanity, seems a very long way off.

Alternative Fools

2009-03-24T07:23:00.000-07:00

I was chatting with a friend t'other day and it surprised him somewhat when I made the statement that we can never really "run out of oil"--a phrase beloved of the crowd that is obsessed with "renewable" energy. This shibboleth is untrue because virtually any biomass can be converted into just about any sort of hydrocarbon one needs with the proper catalysts and genetically engineered enzymes. Not that producing a hydrocarbon feedstock would be cheap, it definitely would not, but it's certainly feasible and economically viable at some given crude price level. My guess is in the $120-$150 a barrel range which was seen last summer but did not last nearly long enough to promote much investment in such efforts.

A Progressive's natural reaction is that government should tax motor fuel up to a level that makes such synthesis economically viable. The big problem is that this sort of artificial forcing of a commodity price always has an array of unintended consequences that the oil-is-evil brigade never considers. Dragging commodity prices out of the economic sphere and shoving them smartly into the political sphere, in this case taxation to advance a political agenda, subjects the whole process to the kind of uncertainties that investors tend to avoid if at all possible. If the next administration, or even the current one, due to public pressure, eliminates or sharply reduces energy taxes then those companies who've invested in projects that depend on artificially high prices will rapidly fold their tents.

To expect companies to make major multi-billion dollar investments in serious bio-fuel production facilities in an atmosphere of intense political (and regulatory) uncertainty is hardly rational no matter how huge the subsidies of the moment might be. It will take crude prices being "normally" elevated for an extended period before grandiose plans for alternative fuel production are justifiable in any sane economic sense. Even then it will still be a significant gamble. Motor fuel prices in Europe have been taxed to multiples of U.S. levels for decades without stimulating large alternative fuel infrastructure investment. Big corporate investors will respond to real economic signals but will properly view with suspicion the most recent example of the breathless petulance of the political class.

And make no mistake it will take big, really big, corporate entities to marshal production facilities that have any hope of meeting the immense motor fuel demands of the U.S. market. Those big corporations will have to be reasonably sure that they will be able to make money on large scale synthetic hydrocarbon production before committing the required hundreds of billions of bucks that will be needed. Yes that dirty nasty filthy money. How un-progressive of anyone to want to make a profit on a commercial enterprise but that minor detail will be a necessity if adequate capacity is ever developed to address the huge need. Even then it will require decades at least. The sum total of annual alternative fuel production in place now would hardly cover the fuel needed to transport fans to the Army/Navy game.

Complicating these issues, perhaps fatally, sundry efforts, however extensive, at replacing crude oil as a motor fuels feedstock may be doomed by Economics 101 in the short to medium term--i.e. 10-50 years. Recessionary lowering of demand has already taken place and every gallon of alternative fuel created will likely further reduce demand for crude based fuel. What inevitably happens to a commodity price when demand goes down? Duh. The price goes down as well thereby further reducing "demand" for expensive alternatives. Also reducing oil demand is every hybrid, pure electric, and high mileage vehicle sold. Seesaw Marjorie Daw. Progressives naturally think that raising fuel prices by fiat is crucial to repealing the iron law of supply/demand. Which brings us full circle. How progs are going to force big corporations to sink hundreds of billions of dollars into alternative fuel production in an atmosphere of rampant political uncertainty is a puzzlement.

Unless the ever burgeoning nanny-state is willing to use methods with a strong odor of National Socialist/command economy coercion then "weaning us off our crude oil addiction" will take a long time indeed. Before it can happen we will need to weaned off of sizable chunks of our lamentable addiction to democratic pluralism. Well heck why not? Isn't the fact that the Maldives may see a sea level rise of a couple of inches sufficiently alarming to require hobbling the CO2 emitting economies of the industrialized West? No problem right? After all as good little enlightened Progressives are we not supposed to be sympathetic to the trope that climate change extremism in the defense of the goddess Gaia is no vice? Well sure but only if you're "hobbled" by economic and technological sanity and are even fleetingly aware of the concept of unintended consequences.

Oh happy happy are we with our phantasmagorical visions of splendidly productive "green economies" and "sustainable" ecologically balanced Edenic planetary habitats. Happy happy are we to embrace the sustainable road to economic serfdom paved with recycled old tires and unblemished by the tread of anyone's carboniferous feetprints.

Meanwhile little old apostate moi is in the grip of a powerful urge to track down a 1969 Hemi-Challenger for my daily commute.

Economy On The Rocks With A Twist

2009-03-02T09:22:00.000-08:00

In many corners the nattering over The One's stimulus bill grows ever shriller but in all but a few libertarian fever swamps not many argue for the course of action that will in all likelihood prove as efficacious as any putative governmental attempt at reviving an economy by flinging trainloads of cash at it. That course is--to do nothing. Nothing in the sense that unless and until the ocean of bad debt can drain from the financial sector in a "normal" fashion, i.e firms crashing, burning, and bankrupting, will the hyper-leveraged investment landscape return to sanity.

Mr. Ponzi himself would blush in the face of how high the speculative pyramid has grown, and how wide has become its base. Bets piled nearly endlessly on top of bets on top of etc. etc. etc, whilst somewhere down there, two, four, or maybe six layers removed, the whole shaky business crucially depended on several million unsuspecting schlubs paying their over-financed mortgages on time. Add to that insane scenario the endless shilling of complex, arcane, likely purposefully opaque, financial instruments--derivatives, hedge funds, credit default swaps, ad nauseum--speculation quadruply removed on everything from credit card debt to insurance premiums, fund performance, bond earnings, and probably the take from the New York three-card Monte syndicate

Now one Fannie/Freddie sub-prime default too many and AIG, Lehman Bros., and virtually every pinstriped man-jack in the financial hustle is in the hole for the equivalent of about 478 Astrodomes crammed full of hundred dollar bills.

The whole business makes the fatal over-leveraging of the infamous 1929 market look like small spuds indeed. We are about to see if a dozen trillion dollar economy can handle a debt sucker punch of about those same dimensions. This thing is so big that the "stimulus bill", gigantic as it seems, may well be like turning a garden hose on a burning gasoline tanker. It is sobering, to rather understate the case, to realize that however perversely huge the wad the government can fling at this debt monster it may well be not even slightly better than doing nothing. Worse the "oversight" being demanded by livid liberals is likely to do far more damage than merely deferring the debt management to decades hence. Uncle Sugar's feckless meddling in the day-to-day operations of large financial firms bids fair to nudge the situation from the merely catastrophic to the irretrievably cataclysmic.

And oh yes cries of more and more regulation resound in the salons of the left. Peachy. Regulation and increased oversight in response to a crisis almost always is cursed by the "fighting the last war" syndrome. Who the hell can know what kinds of risky esoteric holes the financial community will contrive to dig for itself in years to come?

Golly gee the financial landscape is in nuclear blasted ruins. What to do, what to do? I've got it. Let's take the situation out of the hands of the hubris soaked suits who leveraged their way to ruination and hand it to a group famed in song and story for its selflessness, econometric competence, and sterling rectitude--Politicians.

Sure. Why not? After all what could go wrong?

Gone Away

2008-12-14T14:12:00.000-08:00

Time for Book Review Corner kiddies. Note that this will not be a regular or even occasional feature of these screedy scriblings but the spirit moves me just now upon finishing "The Gone Away World". This not very recent release (June 2008) has been covered and reviewed extensively elsewhere but since I just got my hands on it you will be subjected to a spot of literary promotion and a thumping wadge of abject groveling worship of author Nick Harkaway. Reports recieved of the huge advance given to Mr. H., before any reading of the text, aroused suspicions that it might be due, in part at least, to the circumstance of Harkaway being the scion of perennial best selling scrivener John LeCarre'. Consider the suspicions 100 percent without merit. Mr. Harkaway has erupted forth a novel, his first, which may be nominally classified as science fiction but that would be rather like describing Sophia Loren as "some old Italian broad".

Now I have cared little about whether or not any genre work "rises above" its narrowly cast appeal and ascends to the lofty heights of Litrachure. An inescapable feature of the world of letters, and every other human enterprise come to that, is Sturgeon's Law which pungently holds that "90 percent of everything is crap". Well to whatever niche this work may be consigned it sure as hell isn't crap and can stand with the output of the leading lights beloved of the NYT Review of Books. And then some.

The book seems to get off to a slow start, repeatedly interrupts any developing narrative structure, and meanders off in one seemingly irrelevant digression after another. To one's shock after about 50 pages in one is moved to observe that, despite the aimlessness and near frustrating slowness at times, a holy hell of a lot has actually happened plot-wise. It's a genuine forehead smacking moment and warns you to pay attention or you might miss something important as well as mass quantities of metaphorical fun. By a hundred pages only your cold dead hands will release this manuscript before it's finished. Lordy but it's a fun read.

This is one of those times where too much plot discussion will ruin appreciation but I was entirely captivated by its central macguffin and its many-splendored macguffinettes which comprise some of the most original ideas I've ever tripped over in any fiction, genre or otherwise. And I ain't gonna mention a single one of any of them for I wouldn't spoil any of it for my worst enemy. Which makes further discussion a little difficult I suppose but it's just as well for I refuse to commit the felony of litcrit upon such a triumph of tasty machine-gun wisenheimery and way the hell outside the container Class AA speculative fiction ideation. Just read the damn book already. You'll thank me, love Nick Harkaway forever (maybe even in a gay way), and upon finishing will cradle the hardbound in your arms so as to bask a little longer in the warm afterglow of Gonzo Lubistch, the Jorgemund Pipe, Master Wu, and the Matahuxee Mime Combine. Then open it up and read it again.

I pity Nick Harkaway. Having to follow up something as brain-blindingly fine as this will be daunting as hell. If his personal flying wedge of muses do not allow him to top this effort "The Gone Away World" will be the most wondrous one-hit-wonder of all time.

Schmeen

2008-12-08T11:09:00.000-08:00

It appears that after sufficient groveling by industry execs some sort of bailout for the Big Three is probable. Scattered among the endless debates in the meedja over whether the idea is sound is the frequently invoked shibboleth that Detroit "must" start manufacturing cars that are more fuel efficient, "greener", and that "people want to buy" to assure their future success. To call this idea moronic is to gravely insult the Moron-American population. This blatant idiocy goes largely unchallenged by the MSM who are far less than clueless about not only the current state of automotive technology but also are uncritically approving of the fed's use of bailout funds to blackmail the industry into being good little soldiers in the "fight" to "save the planet".

First of all the market is by far the best teacher of what the public wants in terms of product--by far, by far, by far, by frakkin' far. The progressive politburo has gone way beyond delusional if it thinks it can dictate to the populace what sort of vehicle it should buy. In fact the ever burgeoning nanny state would like us to want to buy the "right" kind of vehicle. Reminds me of Vince Vaughn's crack in the flick "The Breakup" wherein he avers that no one "wants" to do the dishes. If the restless natives refuse to respond to the puppet-string tugs of the State then empowered by its self-righteous hyper-enlightened state of environmental grace it will presumably be forced to cram the "choice" down our throats.

It is a simple plain bald-faced lie that Detroit has not been making vehicles that "people want to buy". Until fuel prices escalated and the economy tanked "people" in their millions bought Detroit product willy-nilly. Of course people bought big vehicles. They seemed like a good deal for the money in the same way that a 3000sq.ft house seems like a better deal to most folks than a 2000sq.ft. house for the same price. That this may not in fact be true is beside the point. When consumers purchase a product, house, car, TV, cell phone, whatever, they will in almost all cases look for what they perceive as a "good deal". A full-size pickup or big SUV seemed like a good deal since it's a whole bunch of vehicle for the same price as a much smaller passenger car. If someone had any need for hauling lots of people or stuff, even on a very occasional basis, then a pickemup or Tahoe/Expedition/et.al. was a better choice in terms of utility and consequent consumer satisfaction. Or at least it was until fuel prices lifted off for the stratosphere.

Fuel prices have spiked before and the U.S. auto industry has responded in such time frames as it was able due to lengthy product development cycles (made ever more lengthy by ever increasing federal regulatory demands). The Asian companies seemed more "agile" in this respect primarily due to the fact that their mix of existing product in their home markets meant that less time and money needed to be spent in responding to variations in consumer demand for greater fuel efficiency. Federalizing a vehicle design already well past its development phase is a lot less expensive than designing new product from scratch although it could hardly be described as cheap. Even at that they were forced to move production to the U.S. as labor costs escalated out of sight in the auld sod of Nippon. Not being idiots the Japanese, among others, established production in southern right-to-work states which perforce meant far fewer hassles from unions. To have sited plants in heavily unionized rust-belt states would have been tantamount to fiduciary malfeasance. Think of this as "unfair" competition as you will but for the foreign firms it was either that or see their market share fade away as rising indigenous labor costs increasingly froze them out of the U.S. market.

By the 90s the market had settled roughly into a two-tier system where Detroit made the big roomy vehicles that people wanted and the foreign makes serviced the smaller, and almost by accident, more fuel efficient market segment. I say "by accident" because with fuel prices at historic lows the higher mileage of smaller vehicles was mere gravy and not a significant driving market force. Honda found that this particular gravy did not attract sufficient interest when in the 90s sales of its very high mileage Civic variant lanquished.

This segmentization was not absolute as evidenced by the success of smallish Detroit product such as the Ford Escort/Focus and the Chevrolet Cavalier/Cobalt. Also going against the grain were Nissan's and Toyota's forays into large pickups and SUVs. The Japanese have had some success in this market but peak sales volumes were never more than a fraction of the sales of big Detroit iron so the two-tiered structure largely persisted.

As the years progressed Pacific-rim makes encroached more and more into the mid-sized market segment since lower production costs meant higher content levels in vehicles that had heretofore been the province of Detroit. It also meant that they could "afford" higher build quality than Detroit could although that gap has narrowed significantly in recent years. In any case to expect that product "quality" is a concept somehow divorced entirely from monetary concerns is to display an advanced level of economic nincompoopery.

Fast forward to summer 2008 whereupon not just Detroit but all manufacturers are hit with a quadruple whammy. Fuel prices skyrocket, the financial sector self-destructs, a full-blown recession rears its head, and deaf dumb and blind climate hysteria revs to the redline amongst the political class. If Detroit firms are so arrogant and stupid in terms of marketing then why have foreign makes declined in sales to virtually the same degree? Those alleged paragons of social responsibility Toyota, Nissan, and Honda have all seen sales plummet and not just in big vehicle sales but across the board. It's the economy stupid. If a rising tide lifts all boats then when the economic tide goes out all are at risk of finding their keels sunk in the mud. In a recession no amount of kowtowing to the environmental gods will ensure sales success. Even if a vehicle could be built that would haul six people and get 50mpg it would not sell if most people were not able to buy it. In such a scenario if you find yourself "stuck" with a newish relatively low mileage vehicle it makes zero financial sense to trade it in on a much smaller higher efficiency vehicle. Not many consumers are willing to take a financial bath on such a deal simply because the political class is fibrillating with climate change hysteria. This makes yet even less sense when considering the yo-yoing fuel price situation.

Progressives leges can mandate, coerce, and tax-credit their backsides off and it won't result in the sale of a single vehicle that would not have otherwise been sold anyway. If you think sales are bad now just wait until you see what the automotive and economic geniuses on the Hill are trying to insist manufacturers build with zero regard for anything resembling real consumer demand. People will stay away in droves from over-priced small hybrids and the envisioned pure electric vehicles that supremely arrogant progressive pols are just sure will lead us all into the sunlit uplands of environmental responsibility. For years these sanctimonious gits have been trying to make a vehicle purchase into an overarching moral exercise and have been busy painting the owners of big vehicles as planetary traitors a goodly distance in social acceptability below axe murderers and Big Oil CEOs.

Congress-critters may bludgeon car makers into "going green" but there are no tactics, however ham-fisted and coercive, that will force consumers to buy vehicles they do not want and/or cannot afford. Consumers certainly won't complain that a new vehicle gets good mileage but bloody few are willing consider an automobile purchase as simply an instrument to advance progressive political ideology--certainly not this consumer and certainly not many millions of others. The automotive industry will rise and fall based on market and economic factors no matter how furiously progs rail in high-dudgeon at obstreperous consumers who will pursue their own interests and not those of their self-anointed moral superiors.

Green schmeen. Regardless of how much more "oversight", and however many more oppressive mandates are added to the already crushing regulatory burden of the auto industry, vehicle sales will not smartly rebound as so dreamily envisioned by progressives. Instead sales are likely to tank even further as the cost of "saving the planet" escalates ever higher than our ability to afford that stupefyingly presumptious and maniacally grandiose project.

Quick update: After having heard some of the bizarre and ludicrous details of the auto bailout bill no surprise whatsoever will be expressed if all three Detroit companies are sunk in bankruptcy within two years.

The Certified Organic Environmentally Sustainable Union Approved Grapes Of Wrath

2008-12-07T11:09:00.000-08:00

December, 2008.

Well we've found out right enough what conditions would result in far lower crude oil prices. Viz a worldwide financial and economic meltdown. Gasoline prices have passed $1.50 per gallon on the way down to who knows where. Funny how few are complaining about speculators these days and the Big Three auto execs have replaced the evil greedy Big Oil execs as congressional whipping boys. Progressive legislators may not exhibit much acumen in the economic arena but they effect superb efficiency in the production of scapegoats.

Crude prices are down by about 70% and gasoline has followed the trend which puts both at four year lows. Even panicky OPEC production cuts have seemed to have little effect rather giving the lie to assertions they have some sort of oligarchical control over prices. Sales of overpriced electric vehicles have tanked even worse than conventional auto sales proving that such marginally useful eviro-toys are no more immune to financial vicissitudes than anything else.

Suffice to say that when the economy starts to show even a glimmer of recovery the price of fuel will escalate which means a couple of quarters of sub $1.50 gas prices with ratcheting starting back up in say summer 2009. No bets though. On anything. Prognostication in matters economic is worse than a mug's game. It's just plain stupid. Equally stupid is economic planning but it will be entertaining, in a putrid sort of way, to watch the Obamanation's attempts to prove that all 100% of several thousand such previous failed efforts were merely mishandled anomalies. Meanwhile to those who think that the business cycle can be maintained at a permanent peak by goverment fiat I suggest you stock up on peanut butter and mac&cheese. I wonder how your Prius will look with all your possessions lashed onto it? At least it'll be a lot more comfy than the Joad's rattletrap Hudson.

GOP RX PDQ BFD

2008-11-17T05:40:00.000-08:00

Sundry panels, editorialists, and a seemingly endless parade of shirt-tail pundits are busily whiffing the "Future of the GOP" shuttlecock back and forth over the net. One sober commentator after another declares that the party must appeal to a broader voter base if it expects to remain a viable political power. A rather smaller subset maintains that the path back to power must have the potholes of creeping GOP liberalism paved over with core conservative principles before any electoral success is achieved. Most of this rather misses the point. The point is that if in fact a person has developed what they consider to be a set of personal cultural and economic principles, describable as conservative, centrist, progressive, libertarian, or whatever the heck else, then that person should live, act, and vote on those principles and resist swaying with the winds of the political moment. If you do not have any solid base of principle then it may well be that the urge to craft policies that will cultivate the supposedly malleable middle is the way to power fame and glory. How very--progressive.

The main thrust of argument seems to be that if you are a conservative well then just cut it out already! Those annoying inconvenient bedrock conservatives are just getting in the way of the GOP being more "inclusive" and cultivating the biggish chunk of the electorate styling themselves Independents. Can't have all those "idealogues" mucking up the party's chances in the next election cycle. In current media parlance the term ideologue is merely code for "extreme right winger" which is further code for anyone a half notch less liberal than Barney Frank. The media are helpfully redefining just what is "right wing". For instance John McCain was redefined from party "maverick" to panting Bush lap dog in mere weeks by the Grey Lady as a contingency plan to reduce any possible threat to the Triumph Of The Will, oh pardon me, The One.

I, as a self-described radical centrist, don't really give two and half hoots in Hades about the GOP. That does not mean that I loath the bottom-feeders across the aisle any less. I am certainly not so puerile as to assert that the absolutely smallest government that is at all possible is automatically best but by no means should that infer I have sympathy for the progressive attitude that there is really no such thing as too much government. If this sounds like wanting to snarf some cake and possess it as well then too bad. It is hardly an outre' principle to hold that government may be necessary but that government "action" should the very last resort as opposed to the progressive attitude that it is the always the first and best response to all "problems". Any government's ability to solve economic and social problems is extremely limited but their ability to make things worse is essentially infinite. Politicians of all stripes but especially modern liberal ones simply do not admit to the existence of the iron law of unintended consequences. As far as the concept of the cost/benefit analysis is concerned progressives, hard core environmentalists especially, would sooner disembowel themselves than admit it even exists.

This this then is my guiding principle. You may or may not have one but I do and it owes loyalty to no party. So why should I mourn the tribulations of the GOP? I voted for McCain to no one's surprise I'm sure. The venerable black economist Thomas Sowell, when asked why he was voting for McCain when he had previously been so critical of him, replied, "I prefer a disaster to a catastrophe." I suspect the bulk of the conservative base felt the same way. It was either vote for McCain or stay home because third party candidates are pointlessly Quixotic and voting for The One was not a sane option for any proponent of any limitations on gummint. So McCain lost and the the big O won. Que sera blah blah. I voted on principle and not because of a failure to parse which party was more "inclusive." The principle in this case means simply voting for whatever candidate is less enthusiastic about statist intervention--in anything. So despite the fact that the McCainster was the least conservative GOP candidate in living memory he got my vote but only due to The One's near infinitely statist proclivities.

The bulk of the electorate is not greatly "ideological". That is to say that they have little in the way of thoughtful economic or political principles to get in the way of being swayed by whatever direction the media wind is blowing. Perhaps this is not so much a flaw as a feature of the modern zeitgeist but nevertheless it has clearly borne fruit. He who most convincingly promised the most goodies and the most government action to fix, well, everything, was the winner. That combined with the near priceless cultural cachet of a smooth talking candidate being a member of a historically repressed and eternally aggrieved minority helped matters along nicely.

The Republic will survive B.H.O. even if it takes a generation to undo his economic and social meddling. This centrist, lately redefined by the media as a conservative, will stay the course whatever the electoral fortunes of the GOP and whatever feckless calls for "unity" are thundered from the progressive pulpit. And bugger the relentless whining from progressives that this that or the other pol, pundit or blogger is being "divisive" when in actual fact the complaint is merely code for not showing approval of the standard prog. line. The audience for this blog, which admittedly could fit in a small closet, can rest assured that the sundry lunacies of the left and right will not escape whatever rhetorical horsepower I can bring to bear. Creationist nitwits and re-distributionist bird-brains can expect equal time. If being no one's lap dog means being no one's friend then so let it be written and so let it be done.

No better comment on the conservative philosophical bent (centrist or otherwise) is available than one from the Man.

"When one declares oneself to be a conservative, one is not, unfortunately, thereupon visited by tongues of fire that leave one omniscient. The acceptance of a series of premises is just the beginning. After that, we need constantly to inform ourselves, to analyze and to think through our premises and their ramifications. We need to ponder, in the light of the evidence, the strengths and the weaknesses, the consistencies and the inconsistencies, the glory and the frailty of our position, week in and week out. Otherwise we will not hold our own in a world where informed dedication, not just dedication, is necessary for survival and growth."

William F. Buckley Jr., Feb 8, 1956, NR

Battery Powered Adult Toys

2008-11-14T16:37:00.000-08:00

Lithium sweet lithium. Lovely soft silvery metal it is which vies with Prozac as boon companion for the artisanal neurotic who has failed to find balm in Gilead, or Tribeca, Dumbo, Nolita, or God forbid--the Bronx. In analogous fashion loverly lithium has become a psychic emollient and revered Icon for the overheated postulants of the High Church of Environmentalism. Our Lady of Lithium is not some demure chaste long-skirt hoarding her gifts against the day of husbandly embrace but rather an elemental strumpet giving freely of her fast and loose electrons for a sly chemical wink and the tender of substantial sums of cash. In other words batteries people batteries.

Most current battery technologies touted for present and future use involve the element lithium, a soft silvery white metal, with several unusual properties but the one with the most relevance is that in various chemical combinations it allows the storage of large amounts of electrical energy in relatively small volumes. It's primary disadvantage is that it is expensive as hell and getting pricier by the week. Some lithium production occurs in the U.S but the dirty little secret of the battery industry is that such production will have to skyrocket to supply even a portion of the grandiose plans of the auto industry. The upcoming Chevy Volt uses a lithium battery of some 16 kilowatts and the rumor is that it will cost the consumer 15,000 dollars to replace. These high price levels will only escalate because the element represents a large fraction of the chemical makeup of these battery systems.

The Volt and the multitude of similar concepts issuing from manufacturers world-wide are causing the environmental establishment to practically fibrillate with joy. Any effort to reduce the use of the evil internal combustion engine is greeted with hosannas of encouragement and complaints about affordability are dismissed as the irrelevant maunderings of ignorant boobs or paid oil industry stooges. Here we come to the point of this screed. The precipitous lunge towards alternative automotive power sources threatens to starve the lower end of the market of product that is touted to advance the holy crusade of lowering society's carbon footprint.

Joe Hoi and Mary Polloi will be poop out of luck. In no current or projected scenario will pure electric or hybrid vehicles be produced for prices remotely near the bottom of the market--period. The technology is just too complex and expensive for vehicles that cost under 15,000 dollars. Small size will not help the situation. The Prius is a small car as is the Volt, neither larger than a Toyota Corolla, and shrinking them further will only affect prices minimally. One can buy a fairly nice efficient small sedan for less than what the battery in the Volt will cost and even though the Prius has a much smaller battery it is much more mechanically complex and so will be resistant to price reductions. No other pending hybrid or pure electric technology promises any product for the low end of the market. The technology exists now to make small conventional vehicles that get extremely good mileage, and at reasonable prices, but the ICE has been demonized to the point that the E-Church considers them grubby apostates, unfit to participate in the jihad against AGW.

The current low end of the electric market is around 10-15 thousand dollars. That kind of money will get you an vehicle which is little more than a glorified golf cart with all the utility and convenience that implies. They are known as NEVs, Neighborhood Electric Vehicles, useful in sunbelt senior communities perhaps but entirely worthless for real world commutes in problematic weather. Promoters and shysters abound in the limited production electric vehicle world with some efforts resembling dot.com. start-ups that are long on cash requirements and short on product. These contraptions and even much higher performance vehicles like the Tesla are all ridiculously expensive, impractical, and are available in extremely limited numbers.

To these sorts of grumbles the yea-sayers respond that it's early days yet. Just wait till electrics get into mass production and prices will tumble just as they did in the early days of the automobile. To which this grumbler responds if you think a Prius, a Tesla, or a Volt can be in any wise compared to a Model T then you are, well, an idiot. In the early 1900s there was no product, consumer or otherwise, a tiny fraction as complicated as the average modern car much less a hybrid. Henry Ford may have been a mass production pioneer but he was working with thoroughly familiar steel and wood not aluminum, titanium, carbon composites, high-power electronics and exotic battery chemistrys. The Model T was a paragon of design simplicity whereas modern cars are by a wide margin the most complex devices encountered daily by the average person. The point is that really useful electric vehicles may prove subject to economies of scale to some degree but to think that in the fullness of time we can all be driving electric cars as cheap as the current bottom of the market scarcely qualifies as a pipe-dream.

If I weren't a meanie I would forbear to mention that the number of pages of federal regulation that burdened ol' Henry was zero as was the consequent cost to the consumer who was thrilled that he could buy a car, any car, for a price that working folks could afford. The Model T became ridiculously cheap but it was hardly a technological wonder. In fact it was a primitive, albeit fairly reliable, device that greatly helped put the country on wheels but was unsophisticated even by the standards of the day. Adjusted for inflation the cheapest Model T would sell for about four grand in current bucks. It is a demonstrable miracle of manufacturing cleverness that in today's truly bizarre regulatory environment the cheapest vehicle sold is only three times that expensive.

In its usual ham-fisted social engineering style the gummint offers "tax-credits" for those buying from a favored subset of allegedly efficient vehicles. These of course are simply consumer bribes that supposedly ease the pain of spending money on vehicles that are not otherwise economically viable in pursuit of larger green policy objectives. It is reported that the "credit" for the Volt will be in the well-to-do neighborhood of $7500 which simply means that Chevrolet can charge at least that much more for a vehicle that will hit the market pathetically uncompetitive in any measure of that quality you care to address. Expect to fork over close to 40K for the Volt, even with the credit, for a vehicle that will be rather more efficient than a Chevy Cobalt but will be well over twice as expensive. Where pray tell is the "mass" in this market?

The Volt will exhibit a 20 to 25 thousand dollar premium over vehicles of similar size and transport capability. Even at the recent peak of four dollars per gallon for fuel that twenty thousand dollar difference represents about 150,000 miles of travel for a Cobalt. At current October '08 prices it's more like 300,000 miles. Of course the Volt will use less fuel but far from zero. Additionally in the case of the Cobalt the consumer will only have to pay for fuel twenty bucks at a time over the course of many years instead of 20 large, with interest, in the first four or five years of Volt ownership. There are undoubtedly a few who will pay twenty grand for a can of green credential polish but there are millions more who will sanely refuse or simply be unable to do it.

In this, and so many other cases, the policy proscriptions of the enviro-left will have the effect of "saving the planet" by making it much more expensive to live on it. Any you, you ignorant prole, are expected to cheerily support becoming ever more destitute so that the manifold environmental hysterias of progressives might triumph over anything even remotely resembling a sober cost-benefit analysis. The irony is positively sludge-like that after decades of progressives styling themselves as champions of the working-class their current message seems to be "Up yours red state jack-legs. You rubes are expendable and doomed to be collateral damage in our noble quest to save the planet from, well, people like you. Suck it up." For the bulk of the Volk battery powered cars may have the same effect as a battery powered vibrator. In both cases you can expect to be well and truly screwed.

Flanders Tears

2008-11-11T07:18:00.000-08:00

It being Veterans Day I tried once again to read "In Flanders Fields". I failed-again. I have rarely been able to get through the thing without choking up, pathetic sentimental slob that I am. Now I yield to no one in my cynical outlook on life and have been accused from time to time of not showing enough emotion when it might be well called for. This area is a major chink in the dam of my surly grinchy politico-philosophical demeanor.

I suppose I am simply not "sophisticated" enough to be able to sneer in modern deconstructionist fashion at all things military. And this from a boomer who was of draft age in the thick of the conflict in Vietnam when aluminum coffins were unloading from transport planes in the States at the rate of some 300 per week. Although perhaps not comparable to the 1940s it was still a tectonically frightening time to be 18 or 19 years old. It was little comfort, even to a history buff such as myself, that a casualty rate of 1200 per month would have been considered very light indeed in, say, 1944. We boomers were, by far, the most spoiled generation of young people up to that time and to suggest that we should risk our over-educated pampered hides in some stinking jungle for a cause as philosophically shaky as stopping the advance of communism seemed wildly, spectacularly, wrong-headed.

I am convinced that despite the huge mass of protests that essentially defended the right of the North Vietnamese to subjugate the south, and millions of words of queasily reasoned verbiage in defense of this proposition, that our unwillingness to fight was based substantially on fear of our own deaths. In other words--cowardice. If our parents' cohort were the Greatest Generation (a characterization over which they would snicker in amusement) then the 60s cohort might easily be called the Chickenshit Generation.

The middle-class kids of the drug and sex-soaked "liberated" 60s made the flappers and swells of the free-wheeling 20s look like a convention of Amish clerics. Of course getting loaded and screwing everything in sight has been a goal of young men for countless generations but in the 60s the floodgates of this longed-for behavior were flung gleefully wide. Our parents, children of depression and world war, were intent on making sure their children had everthing they didn't. Be careful what you wish for.

This sweet and nurturing impulse, combined with technological advances in birth-control, engendered heretofore unseen sexual permissiveness that by the late 60s had rendered the frequent and casual rogering of a random hippie chick stranger far less consequential and potentially involving than holding the hand of the girl next door. As typical horny males we were highly approving of the advent of not only the "pill" but also the lowering of the drinking age in many regions and the nearly universal easy access to weed. Why on earth would we have wanted to abandon this unparalled hedonism to risk getting our asses shot off?

For women the pill, in a pre-HIV age, allowed them to explore their own long suppressed horniness with far fewer consequences. Combine that factor with abundant alchohol and drugs and soon millions of pairs of nubile thighs angled smartly open and 30 million dainty mouths gaped to cheerfully encourage and abet the emissons of millions of perpetual young erections. Unrestricted fornication became the casual result of the first few hours, or even minutes, of personal contact with the opposite sex in contrast to our grandparents' tortuous months or years long campaigns of seduction towards the same end. Women were instantly relieved of the fear of unwanted pregnancy and although they may have been no inherently more sexualized than their mothers they could now "enjoy" whatever level of copulatory exploration their personalities would countenance. It turned out to be a lot. A whole lot. So much that we live with the repercussions yet today but who could have known then what effects the wholesale sexualization of society would have? And frankly who would have cared even if they had known? Individual raging hormones take no notice of future social consequences.

Such irony. The baby boomers' very existence was owed in large part to the sexual liscense engendered by the frightening exigencies and heartbreaking separations of the 40s war years. Soldiers on leave, facing the high prospect of battlefield death or maiming, exploited equally intense female emotions to bed girlfriends and new wives with near maniacal zeal which scarcely abated after the war. Voila--the Baby Boomers.

If the age-old fear of unrestricted coupling was made moot by the emotional tumult of war then the effect was exponentially higher for young people frightened by war and far less inhibited by the prospect of unwanted pregnancy. If the couplings of war were uninhibited by the near certainty of getting your squeeze knocked-up then the less than single digit odds of the 60s had only vanishingly small effect. Not that there weren't plenty of unplanned pregnancies but the pill ensured that hundreds of unrestricted couplings resulted in fewer pregnancies than even a single "bareback" tryst of only a decade earlier.

So what healthy young male in his right mind would voluntarily leave this Valhalla of easy drugs and easier pussy to tramp through foreign jungles in pursuit of an obsessed ruthless enemy? Of course few would actually admit to this at the time which made the "anti-war" movement so attractive. The movement, among other things, provided cover in the form of high intellectual dudgeon over our supposed mistreatment of the poor helpless North Vietnamese and the enforced slavery of the miltary draft which enabled this mistreatment.

Alternative press and radio, black armbands, the peace sign, mass marches, Kent State blah blah blah. All very high-minded don'tcha know. Naturally we preferred to think of it as principled objection by the "people" rather than having to abandon pop's money and eschewing free-flowing poontang for the dangerous and dubious privilege of "defending democracy." A goodly number of people decided that this principle could be divorced from selfish hedonistic imperatives and should stand on its own. Hence the rise of the anti-war left that to this day is convinced that "War is not the Answer" and that "Violence never solves anything." As operationally risible and philosophically bankrupt as these puerile concepts are in the modern world they still have a solid hold on a goodly chunk of boomer weltanshaung and on those they have influenced. This has evolved into the facile and self-serving concept of "Dissent is the highest form of Patriotism." Yeah screw self-sacrifice and bugger love of country. Dissent is the real deal homie, sure to make you a fully nuanced self-actualized intellectually mature human bean unlike those slobbering knuckle-dragging brain-dead admirers of the military.

War is damned well sometimes the answer. Violence frequently solves problems immune to sweet reason. Just ask John Adams, or Frederick Douglas, or Anne Frank, or the citizens of Coventry, or the victims of Dachau if war is never the answer. Just sweetly and non-violently reason with the Confederate States of America, or Der Fuehrer, or Uncle Joe, or Pol Pot, or Saddam, or any Islamist fanatic. Let me know how that works out for you.

Which all in all is why I tear up at "Flanders Fields". Millions of young men, perhaps blindly, perhaps ignorantly, and undoubtedly without the nuanced contemplations of academe, have defended not merely democracy but our unique version of it which, intentionally or not, makes them true exemplars of the concept of civic duty. Which should be worth a tear or three and a healthy snort of derision for some twit swathed in pink waving a crudely lettered "No Blood For Oil" placard. May their hydrogen powered car explode due to a spark from a wind turbine.

Find a vet. Shake his hand. Imagine the poppies blooming in the shattered soil of the Ypres Salient "between the crosses row on row." Shed a tear.

Obama Of The Capitol Hill People

2008-11-07T17:05:00.001-08:00

40 years ago M.L.K. said these immortal words. "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by their sonorous yet empty rhetoric."

Say what? That's not how you remember it? Well if the quote is amiss I hope to be forgiven due to the peculiar and disconcerting events surrounding the recent election. Even the truly saintly Martin might squinch his brows in confusion over the fact that 90 plus percent of African-Americans voted for the orotund O-man. This is the post-racial era we've been hearing about? Anyhoo the One is slated in a few months to take up residence behind the massive concrete security bollards on Pennsylvania Avenue having triumphed in Park Place, Marvin Gardens, and on Baltic Avenue. I note, not merely in passing, that the 2008 revised Monopoly game increased the income tax from 75 to 200 dollars. Whether this reduces investment in hotels on Atlantic Avenue remains to be seen.

It was a rather intense season of alarm in conservative circles as Obama's Chi-Town connections were more and more illuminated. Reaction to this was the expected dissembling and denial by the campaign and extensive yawning and exxagerated eye-rolling by much of the main-stream press. That young Barry did in fact truckle with sundry fading 60's radicals and Black Liberation Theology firebrands was not particularly in question. What was in question is to what extent his ideological synthesis was formed by his associations with this putrid brigade of cultural bomb throwers.

If it did it rarely showed in his senatorial performance which was standard issue Democratic partisan water-carrying throughout his short tenure and it's not hard to see why this was so. There was little or no political need to vote with any remotely controversial majority Republican supported initiative and every reason to stick with the Dems on virtually all issues so as to not abrade the sensitivities of any potential support for his White House run. Political need is the key.

I'm fairly sure that he isn't an advocate of Bill's or Bernadine's antiquarian anarchist histrionics nor Rev. Wright's conspiratical frothing race hatred. What is becoming clear is that Obama simply used these folks to jumpstart his political career. He then had the forbearance to sit through years of Wright's sewer mouthed ravings to establish his sincerity and cultivate the profitable ideo-electoral bona-fides seen as desirable in the relevant Chicago districts. Ayers and Wright were hardly the only individuals curried in this single-minded quest but they rather stand out in the crowd. He cynically exploited a goodly chunk of the Chicagoland radical political scene in his effort to insert himself into ever higher positions of political authority and it worked beautifully. That he may be a cynical manipulator of the body politic is obvious but it equally obvious that he does subscribe to any of that rash radicalism or anything much contrary to standard progressive political tropes. Not that to many, myself included, that isn't cause for genuine alarm. Someone in the White House who is a near perfect exemplar of what Thomas Sowell calls "the unconstrained vision" of goverment interventionism is a depressing enough prospect on its own even if we ignore sundry cynical and tawdry past associations.

The further criticism that he has not had any meaningful executive experience isn't exactly true. For upwards of two decades he has been CEO of Obama Inc., an organization dedicated to establishing a viable political brand and which used whatever resources were available, regardless of ideological bent, to push the product towards ever higher political retail sales. Manipulative and cynical as it may have been a more spectacular success for a corporate strategy is hard to imagine than what has just happened.

It is hardly an original observation that since the beginning of the last century, with the tendency accellerating in the past 50 years, that the Establishment Left has become less uncomfortable co-existing with its radical fringes while the opposite tendency has obtained for the Establishment Right. Progressive intellectuals have edged ever closer in tone to the fever swamps of the Socialist antiwar radical left while conservative intellectuals have edged steadily away from the equally putrid swamps of the Klan Bircher White-Supremacist radical right. This has had the effect of dragging the center of political intellectual discourse sharply left and has distinctly redefined the "center" of the overall political discussion.

There is still a sharp divide to be sure however one of the results is that the left tends to characterize many current convervative political tropes, which would have been deemed quite mild and centrist half a century ago, as examples of "right wing extremism." Conservatives have become somewhat constrained in their ability to essay nuanced characterizations of Progressives due to the bunching up of the political spectrum therefore accusing a Progressive of being a Socialist is rather like accusing water of being wet. The line between current progressive orthodoxy and outright textbook Socialism has shrunk near to the point of invisibility and successful denial of this situation depends entirely on an advocate's fancy rhetorical footwork.

The POTUS-elect prooved to be non-pareil in this regard. He successfully swaddled economic redistributionism and statist cultural interventionism in the warm fluffy comforting robes of "fairness" and "economic justice." This is sleight-of-hand worthy of David Copperfield but Obama Inc.'s advertising campaign of soothing measured rhetoric was up to the task. Mis-direction is the stock in trade of political campaigns of course but clearly a new standard has been set. So we have elected what is clearly the most left-of-center chief executive in history, Wilson and FDR included, and now we will wait and see what maturing effects, if any, are conferred by getting to sit in the Oval Office's big chair.

I would like to be a fly on the wall when the newby POTUS receives his first serious and comprehensive security briefings from the NSA and the CIA. I cannot think that he will be sobered by the level of antipathy that exists toward the U.S. regardless of who sits in the White House at any given time. Further he will perforce discover that he isn't the only master of misdirectional rhetoric and that the world's abundant thugocrats are experts in dissembling, dodging, stalling, and outright lying about their true intentions. All the good intentions and understanding in the universe are insufficient to dealing with that motley crew. Many of them, most probably, understand only one thing--power. It's what they wield most enthusiastically and what they respect most thoroughly. It's not just in the Middle-East that the Strong Horse is respected but also by sundry tin-pots around the globe and all the coalition building efforts and heartfelt diplomacy imaginable have an infinitesimal fraction of the impressiveness of a locked and loaded carrier battle group.

On the home front it is sincerely to be hoped that he will soon run up against enough stark economic reality to be forced to shelve some of his interventionist fantasies. It is my Hope that much of his misguided Change will be held in check by the parlous state of the country's checkbook. This faint Hope is the only leaven of my depression in the face of the incoming Change in leadership. Pass the Prozac please.

Presto Change O.

2008-10-13T09:17:00.001-07:00

Change change change and more flippin' change. Everyone is allegedly hoping for CHANGE. Fascinating. Supposedly CHANGE cannot possibly fail to make things BETTER. This peculiar attitude must rank near the top in the logical fallacy category. The simple fact is that change, in any form, in any forum, animal vegetable, mineral or political, is almost always for the worse. As a firm supporter of the fact of animal and plant evolution I am aware that for every mutation that results in improved environmental fitness there are countless ones that have the opposite result of making an entity either less fit or just plain dead. Thus is it so with all other change.

As in evolution our daily experience illustrates that very darn few changes indeed are for the better. Our pay gets cut--change. Our nicely running vehicle breaks--change. Healthy one day sick the next--change. From sunny day to hailstorm--change. Newly paved street to potholed nightmare--change. A thriving business unaccountably fails--change. On any given day, week, year many things in our lives change and how many can we honestly say are inarguably for the better?

There is no need to despair in the face of this pessimistic reality. It has been said that the difference between a pessimist and an optimist is that a pessimist is occasionally pleasantly surprised whereas an optimist is almost continually dissapointed. Islands of productive healthy change, rare in a sea of failed alteration, are piquantly enjoyed by the pessimist.

Science is perhaps the most pessimistic discipline as well it should be. Change in scientic theory requires substantial evidence that current models are incorrect or incomplete along with demonstratable repeatability of experimental results. This contrasts with an emotional willy-nilly leaping about the political spectrum in search of some sort of change that will improve things not because of proven illustratable improvement but merely because of current dissatisfactions. This situation is far worse than scientific inquiry because our change seeking behavior is inevitably tied to our preconceptions of what is "right" without regard to anything regarding efficacy or repeatable results. Then too the public mind, abetted by political demogogery, easily confuses correlation with causation. For instance much blather is about currently asserting Capitalism has failed us with little contemplation of the possibility that we have failed Capitalism.

It is certainly true that political philosophies, not to mention all other sorts of philosophy, are not remotely as amenable to anything like the certainties of repeatable scientific experiment. Even there disciplines such as quantum theory and cosmology have some uncomfortable reliances on "constants", essentially fudge factors, which have extreme difficulty in being explained in any terms but "that's just how the universe is constructed". The true nature of these constants await discovery only in the future and indeed the "reason" for some of these constants may never be discovered. But usuable they are in predicting the behavior of physical systems both unimaginably small and brain cloggingly huge.

We quest in vain for political constants. We quest semmingly in vain for "truth". Modern deconstructionist thought in fact sometimes denies that there is any objective truth at all and that even the gross physical world displays certain attributes only because we have been indoctrinated to think they do by some dominant, and usually oppressive, world view or other. Here's an undeniable truth. If I whack a deconstructionist academic over the head with a baseball bat hard enough his thesis that macroscopic physical phenomena are purely socially constructed will be demonstrated to be irremediably false and he will embark on a new and possibly less rewarding career of pushing up daisies.

Political truths, baseball bats notwithstanding, are infinitely slipperier and they frequently are not, virtually never really, required to be bolstered by empirical evidence. Case in point. Free markets (Capitalism) in the industrialized countries have resulted in comforts and riches far beyond the dreams of ancient avarice. Redistributive economic systems have uniformly resulted in impoverishment and want in various worker's "paradises" but they are evergreenly trotted out as hoped for exemplars of "economic justice". Centralized economic planning has proven time and again to be death to an economy but despite its perfect record of failure it seems to be relentlessly attractive to those who view the fact that there are people who make more money than others as nothing less than a hideous stain on civilization. If efficacy can be used to describe economic systems that have a 100% failure rate then the word loses all meaning. Free markets have without exception been successful in any relevant economic metric and that more than fits the definition of repeatable results.

Our political "heads" are much more resilient to abuse than that prof's real noggin therefore an endless number of metaphorical baseball bats are usually insufficient to the task of seeking political "truth". Here's another truth. Very few of us eat up much time thinking about any of this and consequently we respond viscerally rather than intellectually. This sounds like a lamentable condition but since the deepest most analytical "enlightened" thinking can easily fling one headlong into a philosophical hall of mirrors its utility in finding the truth is scarcely an improvement on the visceral "gut" reaction. Because one concave gut has a PhD. attached and another convex gut has been caused by too much beer does not mean any particular legitimacy may be conferred on the concave version. Or at least it does not appear to confer such legitimacy although it certainly confers a feeling of innate superiority on the advanced degree holder but although they might well be able to grok Derrida they may well not be able to accomplish something as declasse' as changing a flat tire or replacing a fuel pump. No for that task you need to engage a manifestly inferior semi-literate high-school dropout covered in grime and possessing the despised "common" knowledge of what makes your transport module tick.

What is truly comical is a member of the self-appointed elite purporting to speak for the "working" man, to coo in solidarity with his "oppressed" brothers in the faceless factories and dissolute neighborhoods, and to stand with them in defiance of their cruel overlords, i.e. Big Business. As Chico Marx put it, "That'sa some a funny joke huh boss?" Such attitudes result in perplexed perorations about the unwashed being unwilling to vote purely on their naked economic self-interests such as "What's the Matter With Kansas?" Turns out what the matter is of course, nothing. Or at least nothing more the matter than with any other regional assemblage of people just trying to get on with life even though that life might be suffering under the supposedly crushing burden of being unexamined.

These folks do not like change. They are stolid and relatively ungiven to metaphorical flights of fancy or endless philosophical navel-gazing. Good thing too. You would not want people who are literally growing and baking your daily bread to be so mentally self-indulgent that the staff of life suffers major QC problems. These folks may, to the dismay of their presumed intellectual betters, vote their guts and hearts but the results are in no wise demonstrably inferior to any other method of parsing the political/economic landscape. To them change is presumed bad until laboriously proven otherwise. To them change must be thoroughly subjected to moral, spiritual, and yes economic scrutiny before any contrary messianic bangwagons are jumped on.

In the environmental field the left is generally approving of the "precautionary principle" wherein new scientific explorations and subsequent product deployments must be subjected to rigorous and exhaustive research before implementation so as to do no harm to the "planet". Why then does this same principle of precaution not obtain in the political realm? Don't know. Do know that progressives see this principle in service to the environment as laudably proper whilst they see the same principle at work in people's naturally suspicious political natures as risibly dunderheaded or downright evil.

So you're dissatified and want change? Well what kind, what flavor, what version, what different way? What is it about the economic "changes" touted by the Dems that leads one to believe that they will in any sense result in a betterment of the situation than the Reps., or anyone else's for that matter? There is zero reliable evidence that change, any change, Dem. or Rep., will have anything other than than the usual whacking great load of unintended consequences inevitably accompanying any major governmental futzing about with economic forces. The Great Depression resolutely resisted a dizzying decade long blizzard of change emanating from Roosevelt and his "Brain Trust", in fact may have been prolonged by it, so why in their hubris do the economic advisors of either the One or the Maverick think they can "change" things for the better? Add that enormous factor to the countless interpretations of just what in fact might be better and the case for doing little or nothing at all becomes strongest of all.

Duhbate

2008-09-28T14:49:00.000-07:00

Since Jack and Dick faced off in 1960 presidential debates have allegedly become more and more important to the point that expectations for the events are far far too elevated. In those halcyon days before the 24/7 news cycle and the current tsunami of web and broadcast punditry most people were much more unfamiliar with the personalities of the major party candidates. Consequently the debates were often the first opportunity many had to observe the pols in real-time, gauge their reactions to questions, and in general see how they handled themselves. By the time the debates roll around now the gen-pub is practically sick to death of the whole insanely protracted ultra-covered enterprise. The idea that the debates are somehow crucial to swing or "undecided" voters doesn't seem to me to have much basis in reality. Those still undecided at this point in this campaign season must be a spectacularly gormless lot. If you haven't decided at this late date then maybe you should stay home.

If those supposed undecided voters were of a clearly centrist relatively non-ideoligical bent then McCain would have this thing in the bag. That he doesn't seems to imply that the country has already split along left/right fault lines both in terms of general ideology and candidate appeal. I suspect that the level of "base" support for candidates is far more solid than what the inumerable polls supposedly illustrate and that it may be over 45% in each respective case. That leaves very few voters to decide the election and the idea that some magic set of words or concepts uttered during a debate will cause some number of those undecideds to slap their foreheads and exclaim, "Well of course!", and promptly vow to vote for A instead of B.

The Palin gambit has energized the Republican's conservative base, to put it mildly, but it's likely to have zero effect on progressive partisans and is likely to be a wash for the undecided. That's why McCain's veep choice was such a master-stroke. The most salient danger for McCain's aspirations was the extremely lukewarm, might as well sit this one out, attitude of conservative base voters. Seen strictly as a get-out-the-vote strategy it should be highly productive in courting voters who considered, and still do, McCain to be only a political hair's breadth away from Hillary.

From a strategic standpoint deciding to stay home may have given some emotional satisfaction to the disgruntled conservative but the fact is that McCain is not running against Hillary but against someone significantly to the left of her. Consequently the gulf between the candidates has widened from a bare glimmer in a McCain/Clinton matchup into a yawning chasm in the case of McCain/Obama. That some conservatives were still willing to sit the election out is puzzling but the fact of it was real. And it is no more so now we have a real horse race but how many undecided voters have been decided by Palin is unclear. What all this does portend is that there is a very good chance of the popular vote winner and the electoral vote winner being different people. It could even easily be an electoral tie which would truly toss a hand grenade in the political frog-pond. It would be an unholy mess which might result in a months-long screaming purple-faced logjam in the national leges. Well a guy can hope can't he?

Wind Damage

2008-09-14T11:44:00.000-07:00

After Ike's little ramble through the middle of the oil patch much may be made by those subject to ODS (Oil Derangement Syndrome) about how hurricane damage to both offshore installations and onshore refinining infrastructure reinforces the point that we are too dependent on hydrocarbon production. What I've not so far heard much about is the damage such a storm would do to wind power infrastructure---as in pretty much destroy it completely. The large offshore wind projects now being contemplated will be routinely subject to maiming and dismemberment by storm winds that have relatively little effect on the massive steel bulks of oil production platforms. Even with blades completely feathered 400ft. tall wind turbines bid fair to fail spectacularly thereby rendering repair hopeless and necessitating complete replacement. This is not just a problem of the Gulf of Mexico. Turbine killing storms visit every part of the U.S. coastline in the fullness of time.

Large installations will require many months or even years to replace while conventional onshore infrastructure will be repaired and running in days or a few weeks at worst. Building large turbines to survive such pounding may be possible but costs will be wildly higher than for mid-country installations which of course in the "Wind Belt" will have their own atmospheric nemeses. Tornado damage is simply beyond any technological pale. No conceivable technology exists that would avoid complete destruction of even the most stoutly built wind turbines in even mild tornados. If turbines become scattered thickly across the midwest landscape as devotees foresee then tornados will savage a fair proportion of them in any given year. Additionally the building of the thousands of new miles of transmission lines needed by large scale wind power developement will present countless juicy new targets for twisters, hurricanes, blizzards and powerful thunderstorm gust fronts. All that lovely "free" wind power will become ever more absurdly expensive as we blithely sail through our green future.

An old friend of mine used to say of folks who gave no thought to the practical dimensions of an endeavor as being "in the groovy dimension". This thoughtlessness towards practicality perfectly describes those who think that wind power can replace the much bandied about twenty percent of U.S. generating capacity. Oh sure it could do that but our utility bills will need extra space in the "amount due" line to handle the far larger numbers.

There are several aspects to this groovitational mindset. First is the fact that when pressed about the cost those of windy bent declaim that it is "necessary" so that we can reduce our CO2 emissions and that if it costs a lot more then so be it. Now I'm sure that T. Boone Pickens or old Al G. can afford to have their electrical bills triple as presumably can the many well-to-do greenies and nitwit celebs who won't mind a bit. Me and thee on 'tother hand will bellow in outrage when presented with six or seven hundred dollar electric bills. There is no lifestyle change that the sane person will contemplate that will cause him to use 60 or 70% less electricity so as to keep their bills in manageable territory. There are no available or contemplated prodigies of conservation that will achieve this either. One of Hunter Thompson's most famous pieces was "When the Banshee Screams for Buffalo Meat". Well what the average Joe Banshee may well scream for is Democratic Hide. The alleged "selflessness" of progressives who are determined to cram modern society into an economic straightjacket to service the dubiously grandiose project of reducing AGW will not only pay at bill time like the rest of us but will court electoral suicide as well.

Further groovitational analysis reveals that proggies have convinced themselves that vast numbers of "green" jobs will be created by sundry goverment fiats designed to force acceptance of not only wind power but also an extensive array of other renewable fuel boondoggles, er excuse me, options. The figure of five million green jobs is touted by the Obama campaign. How this figure was, er, figured is completely unconvincing and is more akin to pulling a number out of where the sun don't shine than any projection based on reality. It is a virtual certainty that if the vaunted five million green jobs come to pass they will be entirely offset by the loss of five million presumably un-green jobs. Even if the job loss/gain results were a wash it is highly unlikely that the people who do jobs that become collateral damage in the mad panicked rush to Greeness will simply stop what they are now doing and begin making and servicing wind turbines, manning bio-fuel plants, and laboring serenely and greenily at sundry eco-political make-work projects. This five million figure isn't so much in the Groovy Dimension as in the Gullible Bird-Brain Dimension.

Another consideration that has escaped the groove-thang is the little matter of eco-terrorism. Plenty of wearin' O' the green whackos have bitterly denounced wind projects that muck-up any remotely scenic vistas and/or require extensive road and transmission line building in areas of supposed eco-fragility. This is an excitable and irrational bunch and such as the Friends of the Earth are undoubtedly already aware that a couple pounds of C4 per tower will suffice to Paul Bunyonize entire, and mostly unguarded, wind farms. That would be a F.O.E. slam dunk wherein they could Fight The Power by vandalising the panorama polluters and risk little or no human collateral damage.

Not in the groovy dimension but certainly in the patronization of fly-over country dimension is the attitude, voiced most recent by 'ol T. Boone, that the inhabitants of the plains of Texas, Kansas, and other wind corridor states are, gullible bumpkins that they are, much more likely to welcome wind farm visual, auditory, and land use interference, and lease payments, than those snotty NIMBYniks on the right and left coasts. The Midwest is not the only area where there are exploitable wind resources but it is much more of a place where the locals actually see where sausages and bacon come from on a daily basis and consequently are less sqeamish about having literal engines of economic benefit in their backyards.

Residents of more intellectually "nuanced" locales such as San Francisco and Nantucket would, presumably, rather freeze in the dark than allow wind turbines to distastefully clutter the horizon. Overstatement? Not in light of the intense resistance to such plans in many coastal areas which is perhaps just as well considering what a supremely bad idea it is in general to site turbines in areas of high storm potential, corrosive salt water, and heavy seaborne navigational density.

Okay so we un-nuanced unsophisticated un-progressive dopes in the Red States will now not only feed the Blue States we'll also be responsible for powering their plug-in hybrids, laptops, and capuccino makers as well. Fine. That'll be ten trillion dollars. Cash only please--we don't take checks or MasterCard.

Sarah, Plain Spoken and Tall

2008-08-31T09:27:00.000-07:00

The requisite 30 milliseconds having elapsed after John McCain's announcement of Sarah Palin as his running mate the Demo sneer machine swung into action. Notice I did not say "smear machine". The use of the muscular perjorative "smear" can scarcely be applied to the puerile kvetching and carping sweeping through the progressive blogosphere. Even the conservative web presence is not entirely without its criticisms but by far, naturally, the apposite side is seriously cheesed off by the announcement coming on the heels of the Obamessiah's extensive litany of pro-forma progressive tropes otherwise known as his nomination acceptance speech. The nerve of those evil Republicans choosing to put a woman on the ticket is pure poison to the Dems. who collectively decided that they were not quite "ready" to have a strong woman on the ticket.

That is perhaps not an especially fair comparison due to the the woman being Hillary and the actual nominee being the reigning king of mushy liberal bombast but the Clinton campaign was not especially reticent about exploiting the gender of its candidate up to just shy of completely embarrassing. The final proof is Hillary's statement about the near shattering of the glass ceiling which illustrates the thundering obviousness that her campaign was, at least in part, about her gender. How exquisitely galling that, while the Dems. talked the talk, the Reps. walked the walk and actually nominated a woman for the ticket. At the bottom of it to be sure but still---.

The most immediate progessive response was that this was cold naked political calculation on the part of the McCain campaign. Well duh. In presidential politics just what part of choosing a veep is not entirely about political calculation? In this case it was the McCain campaign saying, "Okay we'll call your ageing insider white male party hack and raise you a fresh young conservative woman outsider." The truth is she is not all that experienced but that brickbat is one that the Dems had better not throw much considering that one of the main gripes against the top of their ticket is the very same lack of experience. The pup Obama went with an old Dem. DC infighter as a running mate while the old Rep. DC infighter chose a relatively green small population state governer. That fact that Sarah Palin is who and what she is personally is pure electoral gravy for McCain. It might point up the fact of J.M.'s age but precisely the same can be said for the pairing of Barry and Joe only in the reverse direction.

The past sixteen years have pointedly illustrated that the veep slot is now far from the ineffectual sinecure to which John Nance Garner famously referred as being "not worth a bucket of warm piss" (That's the un-Bowdlerized version by the way and much more in tune with good 'ol boy Texas argot). Al Gore and Dick Cheney have permanently torpedoed that outdated notion to put it mildly. A veep choice counts as never before. In any case presidential politics has been just as congenial to state governers, if not more so, as it has to sitting federal legislators--Reagan, Carter, Clinton and Bush to name but four.

Much verbiage is expended on how much a particular candidate is "qualified" to be president. How, pray tell, can anyone be precisely qualified to hold a job entirely different from any other in the land? Basic maturity, good judgement, and a decent grasp of the range of human affairs is, or bloody well should be, far more important than who can name the Deputy Commerce Minister of Kaploonistan or how long someone has been warming a legislative chair. In fact the longer one sits in that chair the more narrow and parochial one tends to become until nearly the only criterion is how well any particular legislation will play back home and what will be its effects on re-election. The Senate was originally intended to be a more contemplative and "above the fray" deliberative body but its provincialism can now scarcely be distiguished from the supposedly more fractious and emotional House.

The long truculent list of nay-sayers notwithstanding the choice of Sarah Palin is a solid out-of-the-park dinger for McCain. The conservative base was either going to have to hold its nose to pull the lever for the McCainster or grumpily stay home on election day. This choice has electrified the base, loosened their checkbooks, and will attract some attention from wavering independents (those poor confused souls). It might even induce a few unrepentant PUMAs to pull the Rep. lever if their high feminist dudgeon remains unimpressed by Dem. unity pleas. That last is not likely to have much effect but when absurdly tiny vote differences can amount to big electoral payoffs enough pokes in Barry's eye for dissing Hillary could conceivably make or break some ultra-tight state races. The independant distaff vote is another matter and Palin could easily be some considerable help there however loud and snarky the Dems. are about the political calculation.

Unquestionably the choice is a game changer for McCain who was in decided need of some conservative red meat on the ticket since, legislatively, he is scarcely distinguishable from Hillary, or Joe Biden for that matter, and is a darling of very few of those of conservative, or even centrist, bent. It might be considered a safe enough move to put a clear conservative at the bottom of the ticket where they theoretically can do little harm and some considerable electoral good. However the conservative chattering classes are snatching up this ball and running hard with it. Most are gleeful, and relieved, to the point that many are no doubt considering avoiding the rush and having "Palin 2012" printed up against future need. Hard to blame them since after four years of seasoning Sarah P. should be the clear front Rep. runner then or at the very least in 2016.

My personal take is that McCain might well step down and out of the way in 2012 to let fresher blood run through the party's veins. If he wins he'll be 76 his last year in office and if he won again he'd be 80 at the end of his second term. His health status is not fabulous and has been on the slightly shaky side ever since his extended stay at the Hanoi Hilton. In 2016 Mrs. Palin will not be as old as Hillary is now so in terms of the physical stamina required, and it's not trivial, she would be in as good a position to occupy 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue for a couple of terms as anyone. Even if the ticket is a loser this time around she'll no doubt be the de facto Rep. front runner in 2012. How delicious and utterly sweet the irony that the first woman President might well be a Republican, and a solidly conservative one at that. Don't know if that sends a thrill up Chris Matthew's leg but mine is beginning to expectantly twitch a bit.

Update: Sarah Palin's daughter Bristol is five months pregnant--and not married although that is the intent apparently. The lefty blogosphere is having a predictable field day but since this situation is quite common in the country it is likely to increase support of Palin among "working class" voters who will view the decision to keep the baby as clear evidence of the Palin family's pro-life creds. Hard core Obamaniacs would never vote for any Rep. ticket under any conceivable circumstances so the influence of this revelation will be zero on that demographic. The teeming masses of Heartlandia, in the main blessedly ignorant of the hysterias of web punditry and who give not the tiniest tinker's ding dang darn about what the NYT or the WaPo has to say, will be generally approving or at least neutral.

The Dem.'s to "take back" the country, i.e. wrench it from the allegedly evil grasp of the neocons, erroneously assumes that its standard issue doctrinaire progressivism has ever had any sort of serious grasp on the electorate to begin with. So let the MSM and the gleeful leftosphere have their viscious fun for it will not matter a whit in this most curious of electoral seasons. The Palin's have publicly welcomed the pending familial addition whereas the Obamas publicly averred than an out-of-wedlock birth for one of their daughters would be a regrettable "punishment". Lemons to lemonade on the one hand and lemons to battery acid on the other.

Obama and his veep choice deserve props for correctly and properly signaling that playing political football with this situation is not to be encouraged. That they could scarcely do otherwise is plain, regrettably their MSM/net supporters will ignore it, but nevertheless good on them for it. In fact their clenched teeth dumurrals are likely to have zero effect on the Obamaniacs of the MSM and the typically frenzied blogosphere. All this garbagiosity has so far done is to focus more attention on Palin which further reinforces her natural likeability. Despair and desperation is in the Obamair and further "misinterpreted" slips like the "lipstick on a pig" crack may be expected from Barry and Joe. It may not matter since McCain faces such an uphill climb but however much vicious sneering there is about Palin it is a plain to see that if McCain loses he nevertheless would have lost far worse if he had not picked her.

T. Picken's Boon?

2008-07-31T19:07:00.000-07:00

My my my how things do change. T. Boone Pickens, reviled funder of the even more reviled Swift Boat Vets who helped hull John "Rambo" Kerry's campaign below the waterline, bids fair to become the newest darling of the progressive chattering classes. His new energy independence plan focuses on wind power and the use of natural gas, in both of which he has invested heavily. I must say it's almost refreshing to witness such an unapologetic public display of naked self interest. If chutzpah is a necessary part of his plan he's exceedingly well covered on that score.

T. Boone's "plan" is to convince, goad, or force the country to build several hundred billion dollars worth of wind turbines that in the fullness of time will take over electrical generating duties of the many natural gas fired facilities that presently do the job. By some future techno magic this wind generated power will be temporarily stored thereby solving wind and solar power's principle Achilles heel which is of course that the wind don't always blow and the sun don't always shine. No technological solution is predicted, purported, or even guessed at. This will supposedly allow the much greater use of natural gas in motor vehicles in lieu of our current practice of paying abundant danegeld to those nasty furriners of our fevered imaginations who wring their hands and cackle like Snidely Whiplash as their bank accounts explode with oil cash.

T. Boone expects us to believe that his vast investments in wind power and natural gas should not taint our acceptance of this scheme. Perhaps it shouldn't but there's that little detail hiding in there of some putative future storage technology that rubs me quite the wrong way. Rather reminds me of a wonderful New Yorker cartoon. Two academic types stand in front of a blackboard covered in two separate sets of complex equations. Connecting the two sets of equations is the phrase, "Then a miracle occurs." One of the profs is pointing at the sentence saying, "I think you should be more specific in step two."

At least one of the pieces of this self-aggrandizing puzzle makes sense and that is to "encourage" fleet vehicle operators to switch to compressed natural gas. This is a fine idea but it's already happening with increasing frequency in response to higher fuel prices. The process needs no "encouragement" from the government or anyone else except the goad of self interest underlying all market decisions. In fact no part of the "alternative" energy spectrum whatever is deserving of government support since the much maligned market is doing a dandy job of encouraging switching to other fuel sources.

T. Boone is hopeful that the current deaf dumb and blind hysteria over global warming will cut the purse strings of various governmental entities and let the cash roll out, into his pockets naturally. In the current political climate it's a good bet for him and any others who want to profit from the runaway bandwagon of "climate change". Fine let 'em profit, if they can, without tax credits, subsidies, and the many other cost deferring mechanisms so beloved by the alternative energy industry. In T. Boone's case the state of Texas has been convinced (coerced?) to pony up nearly 5 billion clams to facilitate building the transmission infrastructure needed to get the juice created by all those loverly turbines to somewhere it might be used.

Just makes your heart glad don't it that Texas has seen fit to enable ol' T. Boone to make a few miserable extra billion to supplement his presently meager income. He's just going with the flow after all. He may well have become resigned to the Dems. perpetually intransigent quashing of every effort to increase oil exploration anywhere on U.S. soil so hey why not cash in where a wily old wildcatter can, while he still can. Sooner the better for there is the risk that the body politic will resist having the wholesale imposition of stupefyingly expensive AGW "solutions" forced upon them. They might rebel, congressionally speaking, and the alternative energy subsidy gravy train could jump the tracks.

Wildcatters understand risk however so I suppose it's not surprising he has placed his bets on the willfully blind economic philosophies of ascendant progressives who view free and open markets as an obsolete remnant of the unenlightened past. I only wish I could throw in with T. Boone as he seeks to profit from the economic turmoil that will inevitably follow the vast hyper-costly anti-carbon mandates being spurred on by the bizarre panic over global warming. There's extra sweet irony in one of the biggest profit hounds of the old age of crude oil exploration shrewdly attacking the soft underbelly of the environmental movement. Makes a body proud.

Yo Mama Earth

2008-07-26T20:07:00.000-07:00

Saw a USGS report that crude reserves offshore in the Artic may be as much as 90 billion barrels. Of course we can't access it because a few dozen krill or possibly the odd walrus might be inconvenienced. On shore in the northern reaches of ANWR we could easily discomfit several million mosquitos with drilling rigs so that's right out. We must must must "save the planet" at all costs.

When you see pictures of a massive tsunami, a huge volcanic eruption, or the results of a major quake you just aren't left with the impression that the Earth is the timorous delicately fragile place so many seem to think it is these days. Plop a greenie yuppie alone in the middle of the Sahara, or the Amazon, or the Antarctic and they might not be so sure the planet is the gentle nurturing Mama Earth they thought it was when they nobly shelled out 28 large for a Prius to help out with global warming.

Good old Mom is one tough customer. She ain't a skeered of the likes of us by crackey. Show a little respect if you please for the all time champion queen of ruthless killers--Mother Earth. Not from nothing came the early religionists' injunctions for Man to exercise dominion over the Earth. The intent was for the believer to get busy and "tame" a landscape that too often seemed intent on erasing the thinking mammal's presence. Consider---floods, droughts, fires, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, heatstoke, sunburn, frostbite, hurricanes, typhoons, tornadoes, lightning, hail, sand storms, blizzards, heat stroke, hypothermia, poisonous snakes, poisonous plants, plagues, thorns, locusts, chiggers, ants, termites, wasps, mosquitoes, ticks, tapeworms, spiders, lice, mice, rats, wolves, lions, tigers, and bears oh frakkin' my. Quite a list and quite an incomplete one. Of course our environment is what sustains us but historically it has been just as intent, if not rather more so, on burying us.

Therefore achieving "dominion", we'd phrase it as control, over this unremittingly hostile place was crucial if humans were to move past the primitive hunter/gatherer stage of social evolution. The supremely comfortable lives we lead today are the results of several thousand years of steady increases in keeping ever more of the alleged glories of the natural world at bay to the greatest extent possible. The last ten millenia have been an endless battle to carve out of the wilderness (everywhere was of course "wilderness" once) the relatively unharried unthreatening existence we, in the developed world at least, currently enjoy. Now that most of that grueling business is out of the way we can now apparently afford to recast the planet as the Goddess Gaia, exemplar of all that is good, true, and infinitely succoring. It has been said that the Universe is not cruel but merely indifferent. Same goes for the planet. It spins merrily away in its orbit supremely unconcerned about the doings of the thin tissue of carbon-based life on its surface.

There may be a few nutbars out there who think we humans might threaten the solid silicon/iron bulk of the planet but most, upon a little reflection, take the phrase "Save the Planet" to mean that our human busyness possibly threatens not the actual planet but rather our own safe serene existences. We should at least admit that we are concerned for our own comfort and all the factors that influence it and not really for some idealized phony-baloney new-agey idea that a planet can be an actual living organism. This puerile malarkey would be otherwise harmless if not for the contribution it makes towards inflating the huge alarmist bubble of fear that enrobes the whole subject of anthropogenically caused global warming.

There seems to be any number of people absolutely panicked by the prospect of a six inch sea level rise and a two or three degree rise in average global temperature. Even if I were to abandon my critical faculties entirely and accept the worst case scenarios shrilly bandied about, the fact remains that these scenarios are predictions and not guarantees. In fact there seem to be no shortage of qualifiers such as, "could result in", "projections are", "studies indicate", "as much as" and "computer modeling suggests". It takes a level of confidence in which I am not willing to indulge to uncritically accept the proposition that climate modeling is so keenly advanced and infallible when equivalently complex art renders mere meteorological predictions entirely useless past about ten days. I've heard the argument that long term changes are in some ways easier to predict than short term weather patterns but sorry just not buying it. It is the utter height of hubris to suggest that we know even a fraction of what we need to know about a system as stupendously complex and subtly interrelated as an entire planetary biosphere.

Cherry-picking data is the long-standing traditional dodge of activist groups who fear that any contrary indications might run the risk of ratcheting back the hysteria which is seen as crucial in heating up public demand for "action" on any given issue. Which is why the current years long spell of average temperature moderation is characterized as purely anomalous or merely the cool calm before the warm storm. Skepticism is growing and is getting much harder to pass off as the bleatings of paid industry shills but so many individuals and organizations are so deeply invested in climate change hysteria that even the barest smidgin of rhetorical backsliding cannot be tolerated. In fact the more the orthodoxy is challenged the greater the volume of alarmism becomes along with the inevitable descent into nasty ad-hominem attacks on those who dare challenge the sacred invocation "The Science Is Settled".

Pardon me but Science is never "settled". It is fundamental to the entire structure of the scientific enterprise that new data may, and frequently does, require adjustments in predictive physical models. Sure some things are pretty solidly defined such as the speed of light and the mathematical approximations of numerous physical phenomena large and small. What is clearly in its infancy is the ability of computer models to reliably predict the long term behavior of extremely complex inherently chaotic large scale systems such as a planet's biosphere with its dozens, if not hundreds, of variable factors, any one of which if nudged a bit one way or the other may result in wildly differing results. Add to that factors of which we are likely not yet aware which can and likely will modify predictive confidence levels.

I submit that while an extraordinarily high level of confidence is needed to countenance the expenditure of many trillions of dollars in the "fight" against global warming, no confidence at all is needed at all to assert that there is no such thing as some Edenic climate gold standard--that there is a "right" kind of global climate. Putting aside the difficulties in measuring average global temperatures in times past, which is the "correct" one. For which average temperature should we expend vast amounts of effort and treasure in an attempt to implement and maintain? What is the "right" average temp for earth-bound life? Which one is perfect for the vast array of microbes, animals, and plants that inhabit ecological niches ranging over nearly a thousand degrees of temperature difference? Go ahead, don't rush, take your time.

Is it only that in some ineffable way that warming is bad? How about cooling? That not so good either? Okay then which average global temp is correct? Last year's? 1965? 1842? 1306? 2000BC? I think that point is belabored enough but if the array of forces intent on spending oceans of cash on preventing a warming, of indeterminant strength with indeterminant (but always horrific) effects, prevails we will all get to find out just how much money one civilization can piss away on chasing a chimerical, and entirely arbitrary, perfection. Worse still it is entirely possible that all the proposed technological heavy lifting and vast expenditures envisioned to combat global warming could easily be out of phase with the planet's natural variability cycles. More plainly put all the massive efforts proposed could quite easily make the next inevitable large scale climatic temperature swing much worse than it might have been otherwise. Are we really that smart yet? Our record to date of futzing about with small scale biological problems has been spotty to put it as charitably as possible. Lousy would be another appropriate description. Each case of intervention, done with the best of intentions naturally, has made things worse more often than better.

What I am very confident about is that the media fueled, and completely unwarranted, panic which we are subjected to daily is likely to result in a string of hyper-costly policy decisions that, when looked back upon, will result in the all too familiar hindsight of "What the hell could we have been thinking?".

Our pathetic efforts pale against the mass destruction the turbulent innards of the planet itself can rain down upon the biosphere. A single modest volcanic eruption can spew more noxious effluvia than humankind can in centuries of trying. Not to worry. Mom's big rock bod is tough enough to survive even her own attempted knockout punches. The biosphere has not been so lucky. A little event called the Permian Extinction killed off 95% of all species due possibly to cataclysmically vast outpourings of magma and gasses from montrous vents in present day Siberia some 250 million years ago. One of the possible causes of the Cretaceous Extinction (Dinosaurs) 65 million years ago was an immense asteroid walloping into the Yucatan area. 640 thousand years ago the immense Yellowstone caldera popped its big cork and savaged North America while creating a world wide volcanic winter that may have lasted decades. As little as 75 thousand years ago Mt. Toba in Sumatra blew big enough to convince some researchers that Earth's small human colonies only narrowly survived the effects. 13,000 years ago North American megafauna and the then thriving Clovis neolithic culture were wiped out in a stroke by as yet undetermined but likely meteoric or cometary pummelings. Humanity's own puny efforts to affect the biosphere are small beer by comparison. Worry less about what we have done to our dear sainted Mither and more about what she can do to us.