Car Insurance Won't Cover Nuclear Damage

...Mushroom cloud. Tee hee :)

Grrroooaaannn! Geez Joel, if you're going to hit us with a God-awful pun like your closing line, you should give us a warning. It is too early in the a.m. for that kind of pain!

Mushroom cloud--that's really funny :)

"Here's a concept: making do with less"

Thanks for making my big news of the week relevant on the blog. My car was stolen on Friday night. I decided that I would not buy another one (it was an uninsured Toyota)and I would explore alternative transportation options. On the weekend, I biked to church and to K-Mart and to the mall. On Monday, I took the bus to work. Today I rode my bike to work. The bike option was faster and lots more fun than the bus. I am very happy and determined to commute to work by bicycle from now on (it's about 7 miles each way, mostly bike lanes). And I'm sticking to it, even though the police recovered my car this morning. (Yea--all good news.)

Since the sun is powered by nuclear reactions, are you not covered in the event the sun damages the paint, or goes nova?

kbertocci - you are a crazy man! i'm going to assume you don't live in the dc area cuz biking to work in this heat/humidity could very well be a flirtation with the grim reaper!

You know, there's a resturant on Connecticut Ave with Hot & Sour soup that would probably serve as raw material for the NUCLEAR FUNGI BOMB.

Come to think of it, I set NFBs off in my yard mowing the lawn during August (puff-puff-puff - WHOOF).

Finally, cars are something I know a lot about (I write for a couple of car magazines, FWIW). Hybrids are good marketing tools for Honda, Toyota, Ford, et al., are interesting technical exercises for the car companies, and do increase fuel efficiency while reducing emissions to some degree, though the real world doesn't seem to be matching the manufacturer's claims. The current crop of hybrids don't offer enough benefits for me to be convinced yet, and the downsides of your typical service station not being equipped to deal with it in an emergency, and the fact that at some point all those batteries will need to be replaced to the tune of several thousand dollars (though admittedly, probably not for 100,000 mi or more), is enough to keep me wary for the time being. I'd also add that every hybrid owner I know has had technical problems with them, usually having to do with the complex electrical system. I'm happy enough driving small displacement manual transmission sedans that get 28-36 mpg, and I know they can be repaired by any ASE certified technician. Or me.

From a practical perspective, from what I've seen, the typical cost of a hybrid is roughly $5-$12,000 over that of an equivalent non-hybrid model. If you get 25% better fuel economy over 100,000 miles (and that's better than any real world number I've ever heard), you're going to save less than $3000.

From a personal perspective, I haven't enjoyed driving one yet once the novelty wore off. BMWs, they are not.

Hybrids are a good idea, and I applaud those who have gone that route. They're just not ready for me yet.

bc

Oh, I forgot to add that 5 of the 6 hybrid owners I know live in VA, and the fact that they could drive by themselves in the HOV lanes was a driver (ahem) for their decision.

bc

I think I've had that particular hot 'n' sour soup you mention, bc. The crazy thing is, I keep going back for more. (Probably just an excuse to drink those Polynesian cocktails they serve with it.)

I'm still insured from the killer squirrels that mutate from the resulting radiation, right?

mushroom cloud? really, achenbach?

Achenfan, I love that hot & sour soup too.

I'm more of a Kirin beer guy than the cocktails, but I'm 100% behind the general plan.

bc

If Joel hadn't mentioned the mushroom cloud, someone else would have. It was one of those things that just had to be said.

Cocktails, Kirin, Tsingtao -- it's all good.

whoa. mixing tsingtao and kirin might be a signal that the singularity has already arrived.

i'm confused about the idea of "nuclear reactions"...does that mean you're not insured if you're an amateur alchemist and are creating gold from lead in your rear seat?

If you're an alchemist, you've probably transcended insurance.

I agree with bc about hybrids (not that it matters much). Hybrids seem way too much like an energy shell-game to me. As Warren Brown likes to point out, the actual environmental impact of a Prius compared to your typical conventionally powered 4-banger isn't better by much (if at all) and that extra $6,000 on the price tag doesn't really justify the gas savings unless you keep the car for a lot longer than people typically do nowadays. Not to mention the recalls, the stalling in traffic, the unproven over 100,000-miles technology...doesn't seem like a good deal to me. Biodiesel...now there's a technology!

kbertocci,
I bike to work everyday and am hooked. Not only is it quicker and more relaxing than driving or metroing (I only have to go 3 miles each way), but the ride home helps dispel the afternoon funk/exhaustion I feel after a day at work. By the time I reach home, I am rejuvenated!

Another recommendation for doing with less, helping the environment, and getting exercise: Push mowers.

TA: That's what I expected to find on this blog: validation! Let's see if Maureen (mo) thinks you are also a crazy man.

Bicycling really connects me to my childhood; riding a bike was my first taste of freedom, and as a teenager I spent my summers on the back roads, exploring and getting lost. When I lived in Key West (for 10 yrs) I rode my bicycle everywhere, including the laundromat (with the week's laundry balanced on the handlebars). Never had a car. Was healthy and happy.

And I definitely second the push mower suggestion. My husband does the lawn now, and you know guys like the power mowers, but when I was in charge of the lawn, I always used a "manual mower". You don't have to wait until the neighbors wake up to mow!

right on, jw, biodeisel is the way to go. A few of my friends have done the conversions to their cars already - and it definitly works. It's just too bad that the powers that be always seem to do everything possible to keep this technology from the masses. Not only did they have to travel way out of state in order to purchase the conversion kits, they've both been fined by this state - because they aren't buying gas, they aren't paying 'highway taxes.'

definitly gives you something to think about.

alright alright - maybe it's just my general aversion - nay, loathing of - exercising in this heat/humidity... i played paintball two weekends ago and it was only in the 80's and i thought i was gonna keel over! (course my teeming midsection could use MUCH more exercise) tho' kbertocci you do go twice as far as TA - oh, and sorry for calling you a man! you are a crazy WOman! :-)

A friend of mine from college converted a 1980s Mercedes to run off used vegetable oil, which he get's for free from the local McDonalds. This is possibly the coolest car ever, next to Mad Max's Ford Falcon.

Hey, kbertocci: As someone who has also been mistaken for a crazy man on this blog, I'm impressed by your ability to be a good sport about it. Maybe from now on you can be thought of as "kbertocci, that crazy man who has a husband" (not that there would be anything wrong with that).

If we had to mow our lawn with a push mower, we'd die after 8 hours of mowing in the hot sun. I'm gonna stick with my high opinion of several-speed riding mowers, even if I don't get exercise as I ruin the environment.

I have a phobia of bikes. Do you think there's an actual medical condition covering bike phobia? I can't get on them. I won't get on them. And this isn't a phobia I want to get over, it's a phobia I want to nurture.

My friend has a hybrid Accord. I think she loves it. But she'll have a new car in a couple of years because she's still spoiled by her father on a constant basis (even though she's married...), so I don't think she'll experience many problems with it by then.

Ha! Mushroom cloud. So cheesy but so perfectly humorous at the same time.

How far did the veggie oil car go before having to stop and hit up another McDonalds?

You feel sorry for Ebbers? Your chosen ones have gone down the path of the hybrid cars, but I have to burst your bubble: white collar crime costs society far more than both violent and property crimes.

So much easier to feel sorry for that educated guy who looks like you than that street punk who scares you to death, eh?

Hmmmm, maybe you should try a new hairstyle? LOL.

of course, we all learned the possible horrors of biodiesel when the huge drum of veg oil spilled in the living room.

the joys of apartment living...

Sympathy for others is an admirable trait. Actually, now that I re-read that Ebbers sentence, I feel a little bit sorry for Joel -- he has left out a crucial "be" between "to" and "sent."

Biodiesel may make sense, but ethanol looks like a disaster. Just read an article in Slate - it takes more energy to produce a gallon of ethanol that it contains.

http://www.slate.com/id/2122961/

Tom fan, I fixed it. Thanks for policing.

Wendy: You write, "..white collar crime costs society far more than both violent and property crimes. So much easier to feel sorry for that educated guy who looks like you than that street punk who scares you to death, eh?"
I'm confused by your comment. I wasn't comparing Ebbers to a street punk. I was comparing his accounting crime with murder. Do you think what Ebbers did was WORSE or THE SAME as murdering someone in cold blood? If so, please explain. Also, you say "white collar crime costs society more" than violence and property crimes. What is this statement based upon? I am just curious how anyone measures these things. Sorry to be argumentative, but I'd just like to see your footnotes.

I'm a fan of biodiesel, too.
Too bad there isn't much of a fueling infrastucture outside of fast food joints.
Imagine a soccer mom refueling her SUV with a funnel and a case of Mazola in the Safeway parking lot.

Interestingly, the manufacturers are only now coming around to the idea that there may be a market for diesel cars at all in the US. The diesels we're used to in this country had a lot of particulate matter in the emissions, and they were noisy and slow (but plesantly torquey, which is why they work so well for trucks). The manufacturers are hedging their bets on the newer low-sulfur fuels with common rail injection, both common (sorry) in Europe.

Here's what I'd like to see: a common rail turbo diesel hybrid, maybe running on biodiesel.

And a side order of fries.

bc

My question is: can you get insurance to cover your car for a nuclear attack or in case it's crushed by a giant, rampaging shitake?

My question is: can you get insurance to cover your car in case of a nuclear attack or it being crushed by a giant, rampaging shitake? Because I would like that coverage. I would also like coverage for it turning into an evil sentient robot.

Tom fan, you're insane! How do you catch these? I think Joel must have fixed it b/c the little "be" is now there.

Greenlady: Don't you know that Congress doesn't care about such things, as long as we keep agribusiness happy?

... speaking of biodiesel, I think there's a plant working on that up north of me (that's south of the rest of y'all); in New Kent County maybe? I think the Shrub went and spoke there at some piont last month. Huh.

If being hybrid makes a car get better mileage, I'm all for it. It's a step in the right direction. However, it's not a *solution* per se.

I think we need to find a way to harness the power of nuclear fungi (and/or raging shitake) to fuel our vehicles. Now that's an idea I can really get behind!

Re: biodiesel fueling infrastructure.

There is actually a biodiesel (B100 I believe) filling station near Ft. Myer/Pentagon.

TA:
I'm sure Pat the Perfect would have noticed the missing "be" a lot earlier in the proceedings than I did. Or Tom. That's something I can aspire to.
But yes, I probably am a little bit insane. Aren't we all? (Some more than others though, right kbertocci?)

What's the deal with Oregon? I hear they're quite supportive (at least relative to the rest of the country) of biodiesel. Do anyone here know exactly what the policy is there?

Also, I'd just like to apologize for my sispmellings and double double postings.

Greenlady, you're right about ethanol and IIRC methanol too.

There's more downsides to both of them, not the least of which is how corrosive they are to metals in concentrations of over 10% or so (when mixed with gasoline).
Though you gotta love the emissions, especially when burned in higher concentrations...

Perhaps there's some hope in these alcohols to generate hydrogen for fuel cell use, though it loses efficiency with each step from what I can see.

TA's point about agribusiness' considerable influence in DC, sounds right on the money to me.

I'll have a swig of 'shine for the moment, preferably on a nice porch somewhere.

bc

Joel, I don't know Bernie Ebbers from Bernie Mack, but I do have a little experience with the effects of white collar crime. You may recall a slight unpleasantness back in the 80''s called the S&L crisis? Bunch of bankers and minor Bush brothers, freed from the constraints of intrusive government regulation, got caught short on some loans and a sizable chunk of the country's financial structure crumpled? I lived in Oklahoma at that time. My wife and I lost 11 years equity in our house. Every bank in town failed. There were bankruptcies. There were divorces. There were suicides. You start screwing around with people's savings, their retirement, etc., you are adding stress to their lives, shortening some and ending others. My sympathy for Ken Lay, Bernie Ebbers et al is very limited.

Here's the problem with diesel. Even though it costs less per gallon, and gets you a lot further, there's a hug number of drivers in this country where buying a new diesel isn't even an option. Any state that follows the completely misguided California emissions standards prohibits the sale of new diesel cars, and to register a used one is almost more trouble than it's worth. Auto companies are developing diesel engines with comparable emissions to gasoline engines, especially if biodiesel is available. But you can blame California for why there are only 3 models of diesel cars, from 2 manufacturers, available in the US.

With every post, my writing becomes more incomprehesible. This is a problem.

jw, I feel your pain.

bc

I studied up on biodiesel about 9 months ago--pros, cons, etc.

It seems both sides agree the real problem is you simply can't get/make enough of it. All our vegetable life would be going to fuel our vehicles and not our bodies. We consume so much oil/gas, we simply can't make it up in biodiesel.

So...Joel's earlier "make do with less" is still in effect. We need much more radical thinking than merely replacing the fuel.

The car folks think Hydrogen may be the answer--cheaper and more plentiful than vegetable matter, and the end product is H20. But, it's a ways off.

BTW...as a native Californian who grew up missing a couple school days because of "smog alerts" (like snow days) I, for one, appreciate CA's tough air quality standards. We have great air now...better than many places. Harumph.

Must be from writing all those government reports, jw. But I have to say, I think you write pretty well. You too, bc.

And at least you catch the typos and take credit (or, acknowledge, actually) them.

JW,

Over here in Western Europe, diesel is king. More private cars are bought that are diesel then ones with regular gas. That's of course due to the price of gas over here. It's about 6 USD a galon. Diesel would be about 4USD.

I don't understand the problem with emitions since the new engines are nearly as clean as regular gas ones. (And as fast, diesel engines have come a long way in the last 20 years)

The last couple of years more and more stories hit our press about people that use recycled vegetable oil (mostly from fryers) to drive their cars. Apparently most new diesel cars can handle it without any modification. (once the oil has been thorougly sifted so that the french fry particles are out.)
The cars can be spotted easely, they do smell like a McDo.
One would suppose our gouvernement would encourage this. The oil comes from new vegetables instead plants that grew eons ago and as such don't contribute to global warming etc. But no, since they can't tax it it's illegal. Proves how concerned about the environement they are.

One last point about bio diesel though. (for me bio diesel is diesel created by e.g rapeseed) To produce the amounts it needs to replace oil based diesel a lot of land needs to be used. That would mean a lot of mono culture fields, with of course an impact on wildlife.

Thanks, Achenfan.

Sara, I do so enjoy beating myself over the head when I post something with a mistake. Acknowledge them - heck, I REVEL in them - and the subsequent self-castigation. It's a bizarre form of egotism.

The first step to recovery is admitting I have a problem.

bc

I have never experienced a nuclear explosion personally but I hear it's the initial explosion that does the most damage to your car's clear coat. That would hold true for your bicycle as well I reckon. I expect that most radiation sources can be effectively attenuated with SPF 30,000 sun block which like clay tends to be pretty sticky, especially the Active Sports cream renderings. I used to ride to work on a ceramic bicycle with a lead paint finish and woven hemp tires but after a while I got sick and tired of working for the man and so I stopped biking to work. My guess is that a well executed nuclear blast would help a lot with the mosquito problem. Joel is concerned about crab grass but it's the mosquitoes that are making me crazy. In fact if it wasn't for mosquitoes I would probably be completely sane. Mosquitoes and cats that is. Mosquitoes, cats and militant extremists... or maybe not. Sometimes I guess wrong. It's a problem. "It's" is a problem too. I have a heck of a time trying to decide whether to use an apostrophe between the t and the s. Is "it's" the same as "its"? These are the questions that keep me up at night. No, that's not completely true. It's the coffee and its effect on my metabolism that keeps me up. Anyway, if you live in the D.C. metro region I recommend keeping a bucket of clay and a can of lead paint in your truck, just in case. It's the prudent thing to do.

Hugs and Kisses,

Moi Moi

I recognize that the California emissions standards have done a lot to improve clean air, but like most pieces of liberal legislation (ha!) it is way over the top in terms of how much control the government has. It could have just set a threshold, and as long as the vehicle is below it you're golden. But the standards explicitly prohibit the sale of ANY diesel-powered passenger vehicles, all because someone equated diesel with bad air. That was true once, but is a completely outdated belief. I learned all this in my misguided quest to buy a diesel VW Golf in Massachusetts last year. Silly me.

[I actually proof-read this! I feel so dirty...]

Moi Moi, you sound like you're channeling Mr. Bookman, that guy from the New York Public Library who came looking for Jerry Seinfeld's unreturned copy of "Tropic of Capricorn" (or was it "Tropic of Cancer"?).
"Sometimes I guess wrong" -- I like that. It reminds me of that line from the movie "Arthur," when Dudley Moore says, "Sometimes I just think funny things!" (That happens to me all the time.)
Oops, now I'M starting to sound like Bookman.

Biodiesel is great...when it's used as a waste management/recycling technique. Karen's right. Producing oil agriculturally is extremely energy intensive (besides requiring lots of land and water and contributing to nitrogen run-off problems). The up side of ethanol is that the sugars needed to produce it are much more common in plants than are large concentrations of fats. It could be produced from low input crops (non-food crops). The Cornell study definitely presents a bleak picture for ethanol, but substantial improvements in the fermentation process could shift the energy balance in its favor. I certainly don't think we should be scrambling to build giant ethanol plants, but it's too early to write it off entirely (though we do have to be wary of overly enthusiatic ag. state politicians).

Ultimately, increased CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy?) standards, investment in public transportation, and city planning that encourages walking and biking all have greater potential to reduce "our dependence on foreign oil" than biodiesel does. In my small town, the busiest business area (strip-mall hell) actually has signs forbidding bikes. Insane!

bc, I joined the self-castigation club yesterday when I switched "your" for "you're". I called myself scum. Performed grammatical cleansing rituals. It was all very intense.

Maybe we should all just drink the ethanol so we are to drunk to drive.

Moi-Moi,
"It's" is a contraction for "it is."

"Its" is to show possession.

Mosquitos have moved into my house. They fly into my ears at night.

So, Sara, you're telling us you had -- dare I say it? -- a colonic wash?
[ducks to avoid rotten fruit being thrown by fellow Achenbloggers]

Sara, Tomfan, JW and all others,

As a non english speaker, and a new kid on the block who wants to make friends on this site and as such participates in "private" discussions between old hands, I must say that english sucks bigtime as a written language.

It's (its) to (too, two) hard sometimes to know which (witch) words to use when writing in English. There (their, they're) are just too many pitfalls.

But Phil, you're (your) so (sew) good at it!

I just googled this list:

English Spelling How it is Pronounced
moon (oo) . . . . . . m oon
group (ou) . . . . . . gr oop
fruit (ui) . . . . . . fr oot
glue (ue) . . . . . . gl oo
drew (ew) . . . . . . dr oo
two (wo) . . . . . . t oo
flu (u) . . . . . . fl oo
canoe (oe) . . . . . . can oo
through (ough) . . . . . . thr oo
rule (u-e) . . . . . . r ool
lieu (ieu) . . . . . . l oo
loose (oo-e) . . . . . . l oos
lose (o_e) . . . . . . l ooz
pooh (ooh) . . . . . . p oo
coup (oup) . . . . . . c oo
bruise (ui-e) . . . . . . br ooz
jiujitsu (iu) . . . . . . j oojitsoo
silhouette (hou) . . . . . . sil ooet
buoy (uo) . . . . . . b ooy
deuce (eu-e) . . . . . . d oos
manoeuvre (oeu) . . . . . . man oover
sleuth (eu) . . . . . . sl ooth
rendevouz (ous) . . . . . . rondev oo
mousse (ou-e) . . . . . . m oos

AND STILL ENGLISH IS BECOMMING THE WORLDS LINGUA FRANCA. Go figure.

Oops, I forgot to fill in my name.

Don't worry, Phil, some of us have been speaking it all our lives and we still screw it up with astounding regularity!

Everyone should just learn German.

cafe, that bit about bikes being verboten in your town's business district is funny.

All those things you say about CAFE, public transportation and city planning are true, but both the dwellers and the heartland have voted with their wallets for their SUVs. And our government is doing all it can to keep the tap open for their constituents.

I don't agree with Warren Brown all the time, but this is one area where I think he's 100% right: in America we have the right to make choices, and we bear the responsibility for our choices as individuals and as a country. People will make different choices, perhaps, when gasoline is $4.00+ a gallon, as is their right in our (relatively) open capitalist economy.

Isn't shortsightedness a right?

A person once complained to me about the fuel mileage in their Hummer. It was all I could do to be polite and not laugh out loud.

bc

Toady, I think someone in Germany actually proposed that about 60 years ago. See where that idea got him.

German I find harder. It messes you up with the pronouns. In english you have "The" and "a". In german: Der, das, die, dem, den. In different variations depending if the tense of the phrase.

Sara, I noticed your self casitgation yesterday.

Intense, but oh so satisfying, isn't it?

bc

kurosawaguy, what are you taling about, every bank in town failed?? If you are talking about Penn Square, that had nothing to do with the S&L bail out.

bc: Your Hummer-owning acquaintance is not alone. I read somewhere that Hummers have the highest customer dissatisfaction rate of any vehicle on the market. The number one complaint new owners have is that they get poor mileage. $100,000 well-spent.

The gov't gets a better deal on Hummers, around $25,000, of course they are rather stripped down.

Bc, when you say that people have the right to make choises but have to bare the responsibility as a individual or a country you make a valid point when it comes to things like buying Britney Spears albums, eating McDonalds. But global warming (lets assume it exists) impacts a lot of people outside the personal sphere of that individual. So there a gouvernement should take actions that limit the freedom of the individual. (Just like a tin mine should be forbidden to polute it's part of the river because that river also gets used by fishermen downstream.)

bc,
You have a point, but you're not taking into account the externalities. That is where good government comes into play. By raising the CAFE standards, the government could limit some of the hazardous effects of poor emission vehicles. Conversely, by raising gas taxes or otherwise charging consumers for the true (economic) cost of driving an SUV, consumers would make different choices.

The solution to get rid of Hummers is simple: Make your streets smaller. One of the few hummers over here (in Belgium) got stuck between 2 houses in a small village. The driver wasn't used to the size of his new car.

My crazy theory on the relationship between rising health care costs and transportation planning:

If the government were to take part of its road/highway funds and invest it in public transportation and pedestrian and bike-friendly cities, this could have a disproportionally-large negative effect on health care costs. People would get off their behinds and walk, thus limiting the obesity-related health problems, personal stress (which has an effect on so many diseases and is reduced by exercise), and of course be so much better-looking without their liposuction or stomach stapling. I dream of the day that my health insurance bill reflects the costs for keeping a person with GOOD HABITS healthy.

Here is a web site that I've seen kicking around more and more in recent days. It got a mention in the Wall Street Journal a few weeks ago, so that seems to have upped the awareness of it.

The claim is that economically they can turn any car into a zero emissions (CO2 only) vehicle.

www.terrapass.com

I think I did say that consumers would make different choices if gasoline were more expensive.

I didn't say how.

Would good government add $1.50 to a gallon of gas?

And if so, what would they do with all that money, blow it somewhere?
Sorry for that last, but someone would say that it had to be said.

bc

Hey TA! Merci a lot, for clearing up my it's vs. its confusion. I was one of the children who got left behind. I didn't know overt displays of possession, sans apostrophe, were allowed. Maybe Joel knows how mosquitoes make that eerie sound you hear when a mosquito flies in your ear. It's embarrassing when you have to explain how you burst your eardrum to your ENT's receptionist isn't it? I usually just make up a cover story instead of admitting that I injured myself while trying to wage war with a mosquito in my bed. I wonder how much the average mosquito weighs? My guess is that they are extremely fuel efficient entities and as far as I know they don't pay a single french euro cent for fuel; but I might be wrong again.

In theory, the government would put that $1.50 to environmental clean-up to counter the effects of the SUV.

I know you said "if gasoline were more expensive", but it's not taxed like it is in Europe and it should be if manufacturers and/or consumers are to take responsibility for the effects their choices have on the rest of us.

AW,

It's a good idea that terrapass, but I am a bit doubtfull about part of their sales pitch. They claim that a car emits 3 times asmuch CO2 a year than it weighs.

I'm going to check their claim.

(I'm used to metric, but that doesn't change the basic calculation of my point)

My car weighs about 1200 kgs. A liter of gas is 0.8kg (I looked it up on http://www.simetric.co.uk/si_liquids.htm)

I drive quite a lot and on average I put in about 70 liters a week. 70 times 52 times 0.8 is 2912kg's of fuel. Not quite 3 times, but still a lot of fuel. I never thought about that. It's a lot of stuff to burn out into the atmosphere.

Thanks AW, I have had an "ahah erlebnis".
I'm going to use my bike more.

I'm all for high gas taxes used to subsidize public transportation and bike paths.

On the other hand, my decidedly landlocked home could become the new south Florida if we put enough new Hummers on the road...maybe Heartland "shortsightedness" is really a speculative real estate conspiracy :-)

Tom fan, not a colonic wash. I made myself write lines on a chalkboard. That's my grammatical cleansing ritual. "I will not replace you're with your. I will not replace you're with your."

This relates to Phil's post about the English language and how much it sucks. It's pretty much the only language I know how to write properly and I still screw it up on a regular basis. I am inclined to agree with him.

Ha! The Hummer got stuck between two houses. What a problem that would be. I'd be a little angry were I the homeowners.

I remember when gas was $0.78 a gallon. I couldn't drive back then so I didn't give it a second thought, but I remember it. Now if it gets down to $2.05 it's almost cause to break out champagne.

I feel sorry for Ebbers too. He really did get a life sentence.

I can think of a better penalty for folks like him and Andy Fastow than prison: First the feds should set up a dummy company. It should then be capitalized with all their ill-gotten gains (cash and property) (not all at once, but over the period of time and in the same relative terms that their company saw complete implosion). Next, the company's business model should be something ridiculous, like contributing to pay of the national debt while claiming that doing this will help them sell more product, which they don't have. Let Ebbers et al watch as the share price of the company plummets due to the fact that the company has dumped all of its assets without hope for recovery.

BTW, I used to go to work on my bike when I lived in DC. Being a Dem fresh out of college in 1995, I had to take work as a courier.

I forgot to include in my Ebbers punishment that he should be required to live in a one room apartment and have to eat Ramen noodles for at least one meal a day.

One-room apartment? Ramen noodles? Luxury!

waitaminnit! Phil, I didn't mean a violent takeover, just a linguistic trend. Egads.

The der/die/das (and that's just the nominative case!) is merely gender rearing its ugly head. The same thing happens, I'm told, in French and Spanish (and I know it happens in Russian and Hebrew). As far as they all go, I find German easiest (perhaps because I've studied it more?). Simple rules on how to pronounce things, form sentences, decline verbs, etc.

Re: eye resolution.

It was asked down in the raindrop post about eye resolution, and I just found this website, "The Standardized Human Eye," which gives mesured parameters for the human eye. Pretty cool. http://www.4colorvision.com/standeye.htm

Resolution is 45 line pairs per mm, which translates to 1143 dpi. A high end laser printer might print at 2400 dpi, which seems strange to me.

I don't drive a hybrid, but I selected my kid's preschool based largely on the fact that its location near my office allows me to use HOV to get to work. Not sure how having a non-driver in the car achieves the objectives of HOV either, as it does not take a car off the road. But that's the law and I'm gonna use it!

Every driver's license should have a chip that's scanned ezpass-style when you enter the HOV lane. That way they can ensure there are drivers in the car, vehicles are being taken off the road, and the goal is being achieved.

Actually, we should just implan transponders in the nape of every child's neck immediately after birth.

I hate myself.

jw - don't be so hard on yourself. Just a few swift lashes to your nape with a wet noodle ought to do it!

Welcome to the self-castigation club.

Will you still be members of TSA-15?

If all members of the TSA-15 are members of the Self-Castigation Club (SCC), are all members of the SCC members of the TSA-15?

I think it's the other way around: All members of the SCC are members of TSA-15, but not all members of TSA-15 are members of the SCC. The SCC is much more select than TSA-15 -- as difficult as that is to believe.

Achenfan -- of course you are correct.

The SCC hazing rituals must be pretty rough.

But it's all self-hazing, so there aren't too many surprises.

I wonder how Joel feels, knowing he is indirectly responsible for the formation of a self-castigation club? How is he going to explain this one to his children?

If you can't identify your friends and loved ones without an RF identity tag reader you might consider adopting a dog. Dogs are important to our self esteem because they are not embarrassed to sniff butt. Unlike VISA and MASTER CARD, dogs identify each other by olfactorization, visual inspection, auditory analysis and personality. I asked my dog this question: If you are not worried about electronic identity theft then why am I? My dog did not respond. Hey, I like electronics; I think electronic gadgets are way cool, but I love my dog. My dog can't decode digital communications signals but my dog knows who I am without checking me out with a digital inspection device. My dog is hard to fool. Call me a whacko if you must, but I find comfort in that bio-phenomenon.

I remember when I was a kid I was with some friends, and the dad pulled into a gas station and then pulled right out again when he saw that gas was 32 cents a gallon! He was looking to pay no more than 28 cents. This was probably in the early 70s. I didn't even know there were different prices of gas--my parents certainly never comparison-shopped.

Maybe some of you economic experts (really!) out there can tell me how much that is in "today's" prices?

Am I old? Yikes!

Yeah, Moi Moi, dogs are cool. You can tell them jokes, or castigate them, or whatever, and the whole time they'll just stare at you with that same deadpan expression.
(OK, I'm outta here now. This last dog comment of mine is probably only borderline good enough for the blog, if that. Come to think of it, I wonder why I thought any of the other comments I made today were good enough. Hey! I'm really getting the hang of this self-castigation thing!)

All together now: We are not worthy.

[we're in the triple digits now]

Ethanol is a lost cause but not all biofuels are. For example, an enterprising biofuel company in the Midwest found a way to make jet fuel from soybean oil a few years ago, which has made the price of soybeans skyrocket. As the son of a Kansas dirt farmer, it soybeans require only a moderate amount of water and almost no fertilizer to make a decent crop. Because of that, that's about all my family raises.

And wheat, you can never go wrong with wheat.

Wow, I founded a sect of the TSA-15.

Make your neuroses work for you - join the TSA-15's SCC SIG NOW!

You folks' self-hating and self-hazing bits are priceless.

TA, you are indeed right about gasoline taxes in the US being far lower than those in Europe and other parts of the world, which is why I made up a $1.50/gallon tax on the fly.

Based on the numbers I could find in 10 minutes, US consumption of gasoline is abouut 141 billion gallons annually. At the $1.50 gallon tax, that's $211B coming into the treasury annually. That should be enough for some bike paths, hybrid diesel buses, and some limited warfare.

Something else I would remind folks is that there are a lot of US Citizens living outside the beltways of our major cities (see the 2004 Presidential election for details). I'm not sure how residents of our rural/agricultural areas would feel about spending this windfall on bike paths and public transportation that they're unlikely to ever see.

While I was writing this, I was thinking about a guy I know who lives in Montana. He has to drive for hours to get to a movie theatre, much less an airport. For you children of the 70's, he's not farming dental floss.

bc

Sorry to belabor the point, but I am enjoying this discussion. With respect to those citizens living so far out, it's not as if they don't benefit from cleaner air, water, environment. Plus, it's not as if we can't direct a portion of that windfall of tax revenue to National Parks or other rural development projects that might make life more favorable. But then they would probably complain that they weren't far enough from civilization...

TA, I'm enjoying the discussion too.
You're a nice person.

If a significant gasoline tax increase were made law (and considering the economic impact of such a thing, I wouldn't bet on it), I'm not confident that we'd "do the right thing" with the money (e.g. pay down deficits, public works and environmental projects, getting Social Security and Medicare in order, etc.). Call me cynical.

Then there's the questions of this kind of resources being brought to bear on Homeland Security.

Perhaps we are paying the piper for the Renaissance (I'm thinking more of the scientific side) and the Industrial Revolution now with assorted health effects like allergies, cancer, asthma, diabetes, etc.

Personally, I'd like to see NIH's and NASA's budgets increased $20-30B a year each (out of the $200+B), and some projects for private space companies.

If we as Americans are not willing to help clean out our own cage, maybe we'd be more willing to pay something towards a new one.

Or adapt ourselves to this cage we've fouled up.

bc

Pete: Thanks for the cool link on relative values. You answered my question from Joel's "Car Insurance Won't Cover..." post.