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Summer

The Future Is Now

One wonders if GM really did need a bailout?

US carmaker General Motors is joining with scooter maker Segway to make a new type of two-seat electric vehicle.

The prototype, which will be debuted in New York, is aimed at urban driving. GM aims to start making them by 2012.

The vehicle, named Puma, can go as far as 35 miles on a single charge. It will use lithium-ion batteries.

See guys? If you had started on this path thirty years ago, even using just one percent of your annual revenues, you could have been poised to corner the market on this kind of vehicle. Instead, you find yourself piggybacking on someone else's idea.

 

There had been rumours in the tech press for months that Segway was poised to announce a new product that would complement its futuristic  Segway Personal Transporter, which failed to capture much more than the imagination of people nationwide, likely because of its cost ($5,000) and its niche marketing ("Is it for sidewalks or streets?").

 

The P.U.M.A. (Personal Urban Mobility and Accessibility) would essentially be a scooter with a top speed of 35 miles per hour, but far cleaner and far safer, with a nav system and a sensor array that would identify obstacles and steer around them, essentially driving itself.

 

It would also be far cheaper, about the third of the cost of a car (let's say $10,000), and ideal for uses on college campuses and for traffic enforcement agents (you know, meter maids?). It would eventually find its way to suburban homes as station cars, and even into the city as a day-to-day vehicle that can be crammed into tiny parking spaces.

 

The first and most obvious market for this vehicle is the Asian market, where cars haven't penetrated yet to the extent they have in the west and where cities the size of Chicago seem to pop up overnight. We'll see them here eventually now that the national attention has been focused on green technology and improving the national infrastructure.

There are few things as damaging to the infrastructure and environment as the internal combustion engine, with its thousands of mini-explosions for each trip it takes. This vehicle weighs 300 lbs. A car weighs 6 times that. You do the math.

 

The PUMA can be put into production immediately, as the technology is off-the-shelf for Segway. The only question would be how quickly can a dinosaur like GM ramp up its production lines to make this machine.

 

Aye, there's the rub and has been for Detroit for a long time. Flexibility has never been a key component in the US auto industry and to be sure, the dinosaurs who sit on the boards of directors haven't been strident in their advocacy of becoming more nimble, with the effective result being a dinosaur who can rollerskate a little.

 

That's sad for a nation that has always prided itself on invention.

Space Aliens Are Real!

alienvisitor
Originally uploaded by actor212

I see this little feller staring at me nearly every morning on my way to work....watching...waiting...he knows we'll make a mistake one day...

Gunnin' For The Bottom

After only the second mass murder by a non-white American, perhaps now a legitimate dialogue about gun control can take place in this country:

As the nation gets a clearer picture of two killers who have made headlines in recent days -- one near Pittsburgh, one in Binghamton, N.Y. -- some are wondering whether Americans have too much access to guns.

 

[...] As the gunman, identified as 41-year-old Jiverly Voong, blasted his way through the American Civic Association, DeLucia, 61, stayed on the phone for 38 minutes, guiding police and trying to provide them with information to prevent more people from being shot. Voong killed 13 people before turning the gun on himself.

 

[...] On Saturday, one day after the Binghamton shootings, three Pittsburgh-area police officers were gunned down after responding to what they thought was a domestic disturbance call. Richard Poplawski, 23, the alleged shooter, was shot several times in the leg.

I suspect there's a small number of gun nuts out there now, reading about this story and realizing that yet another exclusive domain of whites, and particularly, white males, is being outsourced to lower-wage criminals: spectacular mass murder.

 

Sort of takes the fun out of killing people to make a political point, like the militias of Montana and Michigan would be wont to do, or the Oklahoma City terrorists when they might just as easily fire back.

 

A point I've always stressed in any gun discussion here is that there is a definite need for some guns in America, and Binghamton is on the cusp of an area where guns might be needed.

 

But certainly not automatic weapons.

 

Binghamton is a fairly large town, a city even, at the intersection of three interstate highways: NYS Route 17 (soon to be Federal Interstate Highway 86) and Interstates 81 & 88. I've walked the banks of the Susquehana there, and had a draft or two in some of the bars there. Indeed, I've even visited during the gay pride weekend.

 

Yes, it's that evolved a town.

 

Drive 90 minutes in any direction, and you are in the middle of the wilderness: a forest, a nature preserve, a state park. Up there, it's bear country, even puma country. You can't always call the cops and expect them to show up in the same hour, although they try their hardest. So yea, a long barrel gun is a necessity and since it's not likely you'd get a second shot quickly, even these don't have to be semi-automatic. And handguns? Forget it. You ain't taking down a bear or even a deer with a .44, sorry.

 

Those are guns I can support. I cannot support a gun that a man can walk into a building with and take out a dozen people in an urban setting (or suburban school or a rural church). That's just patently ludicrous and anyone who defends them should not be taken seriously.

 

When police departments nationwide, departments made up of people like any other average American and without any "liberal" agenda at all, can warn against the ease of purchase of guns, it's time we took the issue to heart.

 

Maybe now, the extremist gun owners on the far right lunatic fringe will sit down and seriously reconsider their knee-jerk reaction to even the most reasonable of controls on guns and gun ownership: licensing, registration, and criminal background checks on all gun sales. We require insurance to own a car, even the most minimal insurance. We can surely require *something* that minimizes the likelihood that we'll have to watch mass funeral services for innocent people ever again.

Imaginary Flower

carl 002.jpg
Originally uploaded by actor212

This photo just works on so many strange levels, that I thought I'd blog it. I took it with a Nikon Coolpix 8Mb camera, ran it through the hideous Micro$oft Photo Editor for sharpening and posterizing, and then turned it into a negative of itself.

It was a blue pansy shot in a container outside the NY Public Library on Fifth Avenue.

Friday Cat Kitten Blogging

Mah peeps! Ah bin bizzee dis wintah kippen a eye out foah burds, butt Ah hab a sekrit!

Ah leff a poop in da ole Preznidet's limoh!

Nobody Asked Me, But...

1) We're Americans, and you aren't our Queen anymore. We hug. Get over it.

 

2) We're Americans. We don't have to follow tradition and invite our fiancee's family to the engagement and give them ammunition for the next five decades of reunions!

 

3) We're Americans. We give gifts that have meaning to the person who receives it, not some stupid bronze statue that's a copy of a crappy statue in Texas.

 

4) Last week it was vampires in Boston. This week, zombies in Chattanooga. LEAVE BRITNEY ALONNNNNE!!!!!!!!!

 

5) "Dieter! Let me try zhust vun more time!"

 

6) We're Americans! We can't be bothered figuring shit out on our own!

 

7) This is your robot. This is your robot on brains. Any questions?

 

8) Four words if you start bleeding: You're doing it wrong.

 

9) We're Germans! We like filth!

 

10) Hell, if he does windows and scoops cat littler, I'll marry him!

 

11) This is just wrong on so many levels!

Parallel Lines

I think I've told the anecdote in the past here where I was sitting on the subway, and time reversed itself.

 

If I haven't, forgive me, because the older I get, the more I think I'm right that we're moving backwards in time.

 

It was early in the Bush the Elder administration. I was sat on a subway train pulling into Times Square station on my way to work. A Wednesday, as I recall.

 

The train stopped suddenly, went into reverse (which trains never do), stopped again, and inched forward. I made a mental note at the time to check if time had stopped and reversed itself.

 

I think it has.

 

Mark Twain famously observed that history doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme. It cycles, with each cycle events occur that reflect early events, if not directly, then certainly in shape and form.

 

This decade, the Oughts, seems to be mirroring another recent decade: the 60s. Only not so much. And in some ways, even more.

 

You can mark the 60s, I think, by three events: The election and death of our youngest (and first and only Catholic) President, a hated President who followed him in office and ran and escalated a war that no one wanted and was completely unnecessary, an economic boom that had lasted nearly 50 years, and an event that galvanized the world and brought us closer, the Apollo moon missions.

 

Here, we see an almost didactic opposite decade. It ends with the election of change, and began with a tradgedy not unlike the assassination of JFK in the events of September 11. In between, we've had a despised President who led us into an unwinnable and costly war.

 

And the event that has galvanized the world is an economic depression. The questions remaining to be resolved are how long and how will it affect the world?

 

Will this economic meltdown bring America and the world closer together as a family of man or will it drive deep divisions into us all, and polarize the world further?

 

Signs for both outcomes are around us. History is not kind in this regard: economic crises of this magnitude usually require a war to make them end. The Great Depression did not end until World War II, although the seeds of renewal were planted in the New Deal policies of the Thirties. They might have sprung up anyway, more slowly and perhaps more safely.

 

The flip side is the heartening news that at least some people have not lost the vision of a world culture. We know the future can only be embraced by humanity when we decide to lay down our arms, at least the ones that can wipe out the entire planet, and work together. A single currency would begin that transition. It would help prevent the large seismic shifts in economic power that history has shown us can be even more antagonistic than even an economic meltdown.

 

Indeed, those imbalances can cause economic meltdowns.

 

History cycles, and sometimes it cycles in reverse. Perhaps this time it's possible that a war created the global economic meltdown and that a currency "exchange" (trading into this Chinese scheme) would prevent a worse war.

Whoda Thunk?

So the first "referendum" on President Obama's administration has come and gone. Or, maybe not gone...

A mere 65 votes separated the two candidates late Tuesday in a Congressional contest in upstate New York that received national attention and was widely seen as a referendum on the Obama administration's economic recovery efforts.

With all precincts reporting, the Democrat, Scott Murphy, a 39-year-old venture capitalist, led 77,344 to 77,279 over his Republican rival, Assemblyman James N. Tedisco, 58, for the seat vacated by Senator Kirsten E. Gillibrand, a Democrat. The turnout was surprisingly strong for a special election.

But 10,055 absentee ballots were issued — and 5,907 received so far, state election officials said — meaning the election cannot be decided until the paper ballots are counted. Moreover, it is likely that the count may not begin until at least April 6, said Bob Brehm, a spokesman for the State Board of Elections.

Republicans held out hope of recapturing the seat in the 20th Congressional District, which is heavily Republican and stretches from the Catskills through the Albany suburbs to the Adirondacks. Democrats, meanwhile, waited to see whether their standard-bearer, a first-time political candidate who campaigned on his support for the federal stimulus package, could pull off an upset.

In that last paragraph, you read the spin for both sides. Democrats recognizing that this is a heavily Republican district, despite the fact that the last incumbent was a Democrat (now-Senator Kirsten Gillibrand). Republicans trying to paint this as some sort of upset because Obama's party did not win a clear majority.

 

Either way this story ultimately breaks, we've not heard the end of it. Should Murphy lose, the seat will be recontested next year. Should Tedisco lose, he has his Assembly Minority Leader job to fall back on, and can spend the next year campaigning heavily.

 

Indeed, the district ought to be prepared for that in either case. The district has demonstrated that despite its heavily Republican roots, it can vote Democratic pretty easily. It went for Clinton, Spitzer and Gillibrand in 2006, Obama in 2008, and appears to have chosen Murphy in 2009.

 

It has been said that there are parts of upstate New York which are so red they make Alabama look liberal. This is not one of those, but it could give Kentucky a run for its red money. Conversely, this district has not shown fealty to the Democrats, either, voting in two rock stars (Clinton and Obama) and electing one Congresswoman by dint of the abject failure of the previous incumbent to comport himself and represent the district with any kind of dignity.

 

Indeed, the name that stands out in that list of Democrats who won recent votes in the 20th is Eliot Spitzer, but remember he was running after a hugely successful incumbency at Attorney General for the state (he was years ahead of the curve in exposing AIG's fraudulent behaviors) and the governor's seat was vacant.

 

Clearly, then, the spin for both sides is right and not mutually exclusive. This is a bellwhether election, but not to the degree the Republicans would want us to believe. And this district is heavily Republican, but clearly not married to the idea of voting back in a party that ruined the state and the nation after decades of rule.

 

At least not just yet.

 

The real story, in fact, is that Tedisco had a twelve point lead as late as January in this race, and lost it all back and then some to Murphy. This sums up the recent political history of this district in a nutshell.