To Act or Not to Act

The Conscious Earth blog had a wonderful post today with a must see video To Act or Not to Act. Share with your friends (and your enemies).

Fuel efficiency ain't so hard

As most people paying any attention to the news know, the Senate yesterday (June 21, 2007) passed legislation that would require "car manufacturers...to increase the average mileage of new cars and light trucks to 35 miles per gallon by 2020, compared with roughly 25 miles per gallon today." That is, of course, if the House will agree to this.

Car manufacturers act as if it is going to take some kind of miraculous technological break through to achieve this kind of gasoline efficiency. Hogwash. I drive a car, that I bought brand new in 1999, that currently (and has always) gotten 50 miles to the gallon, day in and day out. On some long trips I get 55 miles to the gallon. What kind of miracle car is this? It's a Chevy (formerly Geo) Metro, a 3 cylander, 5 speed, manual transmission hatch back, that cost me only $8,000. Eight years later, the car has 102,000+ miles on it, and other than regular oil changes has only needed, 4 new tires, 1 new battery, and 1 new muffler. At the very height of the gas prices (late May/early June) I was putting just over $20 in my tank at approximately 2 week intervals. Imagine that, my monthly cost for gasoline was about $45 at the peak of the gas prices. We're talking high reliability, low maintenance, low cost transportation here.

This is no fancy, expensive hybrid. Hybrids generally get less gas mileage than my all gasoline combustion engine Metro, and hybrids wouldn't do me any good anyway, because less than 5 percent of my driving is "city" or "stop and go" driving, since I live, work and shop in a rural/non-metro area. There are exactly 3 stop signs and 2 traffic lights in the 13 miles between my home and work so when would the hybrid "recharge"?

Since this high gas mileage technology is obviously well understood (my car is after all 8 years old), and not at all expensive (the car cost me $8,000), why is there so much resistence by manufacturers and dealers to increasing energy efficiency of cars and light trucks? The simple answer is profit.

Lighter, simpler, more fuel efficient cars are cheaper to make, and cheaper to sell. And therefore bring in less profit. The math is simple.

Dealers profit margins on each automobile sold are between 10 and 20 percent of the selling price (profit margins differ primarily because buyers have different degrees of sophistication in negotiating). Let's imagine a Chevrolet dealership with 10 customers purchase vehicles in a week. Chevy vehicles range from $11,300 for the lowest priced Chevy Aveo (similar in many ways to my Metro, but not a fuel efficient at 37 mpg highway and 27 mpg city) through $24,900 for a Chevy Impala (a mid-sized, mid-range car that gets 29 mpg highway and 20 mpg city), maxing out at $35,200 for the Chevy Tahoe (SUV for which Motor Trend doesn't even have fuel efficiency information). If this dealership sells 10 vehicles that average $11,300 dollars, they gross $113,000 and at 10% profit make $11,300 in profit for that week. If the same dealership sells 10 vehicles that average $24,900 the gross $249,000 and at 10% profit make $24,900 in profit for that week. If they manage to instead sell, 10 suv's at $35,200, then they gross $352,000 and with 10% profit make $35,200 in that week. It takes the same basic overhead costs of lot, building and materials and staff to sell 10 fuel efficient Aveos as it does to sell 10 fuel inefficient Tahoe's, but you make three times as much money in the same time, with the same effort.

Why do consumers accept this? Because they are bombarded on all sides by advertising that tells them that they have to have more POWER. Only wimps drive fuel efficient vehicles. If your business or livelihood requires you haul live stock or horse trailers behind a truck, or carry payloads of brick or lumber, sand or gravel on a regular basis, then I do not begrudge you the power necessarily to do that. If you have six children, and have to get them back and forth to school in a van than by all means, go to it. But I see so many people driving back and forth to work and the grocery store in huge trucks and SUV's that never carry a payload larger than a weeks worth of groceries in the back. In eight years there have been only two occasions where I needed to haul more than my little Metro could handle and for $50 each time, I could get the Lowe's store to deliver directly to my door.

Folks moan about how small cars aren't as safe as trucks and SUV's. Well, then they should learn to be better drivers. You pay attention, you stay sober, you don't talk on the cell phone will you drive, you drive at or below the speed limit and don't try to pass every car on the road, you don't drive when you are sleepy, and you drive defensively and intelligently, you too can have 40 years of driving small fuel efficient vehicles with not a single accident.

And that's my self-righteous rant for the day!

Dancing with Devastation

Talk of bombing Iran is nothing new, so the horror and dismay that I feel when the topic is broached is also nothing new. Yet for some reason today's New York Times piece on the debate over Iran strategy for some reason seemed more chilling and foreboding than usual.

It should not need to be said, but sometimes people come to bizarre conclusions, but I do not want Iran to have nuclear weapons. Hell, I don't want the U.S. to have nuclear weapons, and never have. I did "Ban the Bomb" protests as a child in the early 1960's, and attended peace oriented anti-nuclear summer camp (run by the Methodist Church!) in 1968, and was a member of anti-nuclear organizations in the 1980's. That said, I'd rather accept Iran as a nuclear power than ever see the U.S. engage in preemptive military action against Iran (or any other country).

Assuming that the reports are accurate, there are still members of the Bush admininstration (the article suggests primarily in Vice President Cheney's office) that are "are pressing for greater consideration of military strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities."

This leaves me sitting here thinking -- with everything we know about Iran, with all our history with Iran in the past nearly 30 years -- what might happen if the U.S. flew in bombers and reduced all their nuclear facilities to rubble?

Iran has a population of 65+ million people, more than twice that of Iraq. Iran has a standing army of more than 350,000 soldiers, and is well equipped to fight desert warfare. At least 80 percent of Iran's militiary forces are deployed on the Iran/Iraq border. In position where they could sweep into Iraq where the U.S. currently has 160,000 troops, the result of the "surge" which has severely stretched U.S. combat combat capacity. And all of those 160,000 have their hands full with the insurgency and incipient civil war in Iraq. Moreover, it would not be too much of a stretch to imagine that Iran might be able to mobilize others in the region (say Syria) who would be outraged by U.S. military action against Iraq.

And then there is the affect an attack on Iran would have on world wide terrorism. You think terrorists are motivated with hate for the U.S. now? Just wait and see what would happen after a preemptive strike on Iran's nuclear facilities!

One thing in today's New York Times article, really jarred me:

When the North Koreans threw out international inspectors on the last day of that year and soon declared that they planned to reprocess 8,000 rods of spent fuel into weapons-grade plutonium, President Bush had to decide whether to declare that if North Korea moved toward weapons, it could face a military strike on its facilities.

The Pentagon had drawn up an extensive plan for taking out those facilities, though with little enthusiasm, because it feared it could not control North Korea’s response,, and the administration chose not to delivery any ultimatum. [Emphasis added].

What on God's green earth makes anyone in the administration (or any where else) think they could "control" Iran's response? They certain haven't been able to "control" things in Iraq yet!

The Word Police Have Run Amok

Time magazine on-line ran an article yesterday about efforts by the McDonald's corporation to get the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) to redefine the word "McJob". According to the Time article

In 2001, the term finally entered the Oxford English Dictionary, which defined it as "an unstimulating, low-paid job with few prospects, especially one created by the expansion of the service sector." And it has remained there ever since. But not for much longer if McDonald's gets its way.

The company is leading a "word battle" on behalf of the wider service sector. The object, according to David Fairhurst, a senior vice-president of McDonald's, is to change the definition of McJob to "reflect a job that is stimulating, rewarding ... and offers skills that last a lifetime."

McDonald's reasoning? "[T]that the OED's definition was 'outdated' and 'insulting.'"

This gives me a wonderful idea. Having been called a "bitch" (to my face at least once) by students, I should lobby the OED (on behalf of bitches everywhere) to change the definition of "bitch" which is currently "malicious or treacherous woman;" to something more like "a woman with keen intellect and low tolerance for idiots and fools." Unfortunately I fear I don't have the financial resources of McDonald's to mount the lobbying campaign. The current definition is certainly "insulting" and probably outdated.

Does it matter what you believe?

I was wandering through the blogosphere...

It always amazes me how one thing can lead to another. I began with a science article in the New York Times, which lead to a great science blog called denialism blog. Specifically to an entry on how to be an effective "crank", which after reading, I understand "crank" means science crackpot with a following! This futher lead me to the blog of an "IDer" which I learned by clicking refers to one who believes in "intelligent design" -- of the universe, not of human societies which would be a much sillier claim.

That ultimately gets me to the comment by a reader of this "Intelligent Design" blog called Uncommon Descent. The reader, after discussing various points made by the young earth advocates (believers in creation 6,000 years ago) versus the old earth advocates (intelligent design believers in creation over billions of years) declared:

"And so I persist in my tendency to accept a young Earth with great caution… fortunately for all of us, in the end it probably doesn’t matter much except that we would all like to know."

And at this point my reading came to a grinding halt, and I had to do some responding! Because it does matter, very much.

What people believe or are willing to learn about the origins of our planet and ourselves has huge consequences for the choices that we make in the present, and the future of all of us.

Young earth creationists not only believe that the earth was created in 6 days, 6,000 years ago, but also believe that resources like oil were created that way, and therefore can either be recreated humans in minutes through simple chemical processses or by nature within days or months, or simply by God by fiat, since that was how it was created in the first place from this viewpoint. The logical consequence of these beliefs?

That is it sinful to conserve oil (or any other natural resources) because attempts to conserve are an expression of doubt in God's power. So, yeah, what you believe about the origins of the universe, earth and man DO matter.

Perusing the Web

During the school year, I spend hours a day at the computer, responding to e-mails from students, colleagues and organizations, reading and responding to student forum posts in my on-line classes, and grading papers. I also use Google, every day, to find ideas and materials for my courses.

Now I'm on vacation, but I'm still spending hours a day at the computer, because there is just so much to read, see and hear on the Web.

I decided that I needed to get more systematic in reading the news on-line. [Although I still spend a couple of hours a day skimming news on television and cable, the quality of "news" available on the tube has severely deteriorated]. So I created a Google home page, and pulled in lots of news feeds.

And I learned, once again, why it is that I don't keep up with the news on the Internet all the time -- every time I read one news story, I end up following a link to something else, which links to something else, which reminds me of something that I want to Google, which leads to new pages that have links that cry out to be followed. Three hours later, I am still sitting in my nightgown with cold coffee, and have not yet read all the news I wanted to read because I fell down a rabbit hole into Wonderland.

On this particular trip down the rabbit hole, I discovered something called City Journal (the city in question being New York of course). What led me there was an article by Sol Stern
"Radical Math at the DOE" -- which refers to the Department of Education (in NY), not the Department of Defense, which had been my first thought.

Stern was decrying a conference which provided opportunities for math instructors (from elementary through high school) to learn ways of incorporating social justice issues in math lessons. Aside from the fact that I heartily approve of inserting lessons on social justice where ever one can, as someone who teaches statistics to unprepared and math phobic students in college, I consider any approach to teaching math in public schools that might actually engage students interest in the subject and make them desire to learn math all to the good.

What I was particularly intrigued about in Stern's article was the following:

Mayor Michael Bloomberg has won plaudits from business leaders for his corporate-style reorganization of the school system, and for supporting market-oriented education initiatives such as charter schools and merit pay for teachers. But the mayor’s supporters have been reluctant to acknowledge the downside of this new approach. Bloomberg and his schools chancellor have also taken a laissez-faire stance about what gets taught in the city’s classrooms....It’s ironic that while Bloomberg extols the benefits of the market in education, his schools are becoming rife with radical teachers using the classroom to trash the American system.

First, I thought that "laissez-faire" was the absolute essence of market capitalism. If laissez-faire is appropriate for business, and one wishes education to emulate business, then it would seem appropriate for education. [Note I say "if" one wishes education to emulate business. Be assured that I, as a left wing radical certainly do not wish that, but Stern seems to heartily approve a market approach to education.] Secondly, if in fact one does wish education to emulate the capitalist market, then it would be for the consumers of education to determine the appropriateness and/or desirability of what happens in the classroom. Has it occurred to Stern, that perhaps social justice is what the people want?

Here goes....

Since it would appear that no one actually reads my blog, I might as well write whatever I want. So...

I was just watching Brit Hume's "Special Report" on Fox News (yes, I watch Fox News, it's always important to know what the enemy is up to). He had a panel of very articulate, interesting and thoughtful guests having a rational discussion about the immigration bill being debated in Congress. Two of the panelists pointed out that the current bill does not really have the support of the business community, because it does not go far enough with the guest worker program.

The current bill only offers 400,000 guest worker slots per year, and proposes that the workers only stay 2 years, then go back to their country of origin for one year, before being able to return for another two year stint. The American business community, according to one of Hume's conservative panelists, would rather see a million workers a year, with a three year work permit, that can be renewed for another three years without having to return home. (If you doubt my version of this, check out Brit Hume's "Special Report" website on Thursday, and click on the transcript for today's show -- Tuesday May 22, 2007 -- it won't go up until later today or early tomorrow).

I have absolutely no doubt that this speaker is right on the money when it comes to a large proportion of American businesses which depend very heavily on the inexpensive labor of immigrants, especially illegal workers.

What I find so fascinating about all this, is that the American upper class and business elite, have been stoking the fires of xenophobia and racism for more than a hundred years as a means of keeping the working class divided among itself and unable to joing together as a politically coherent class based political power. The power elite as G. William Domhoff calls them, make use of their ownership and control over mass media outlets, to promote this rabid anti-immigrant sentiment. [And don't give me any crap about the so called "liberal media" -- Lou Dobbs, who I am sure is considered "liberal" by folks on the far right, does a superb job in ramping up the hysterial xenophobia of his viewers].

If you're interested in a serious, well documented sociological study on the use of racism and ethnic divisions to control the work force, check out the classic Blue Collar Community by William Kornblum about steel workers in South Chicago in the 1970's. For a less scholarly, but well written view of the same issue, read bell hooks where we stand: class matters [no capitals in the original].

As a genuine left winger, I would like to see amnesty for all immigrants with jobs [if they are legal, they won't worry about being deported, and they can be more radical and agressive in pressing for better pay and working conditions]. If it weren't for that, I'd be crowing for joy that the American business community is not getting what they want out of this immigration bill. It seems only fair that if you spend a hundred years of fanning the flames of hate and fear, that hate and fear will suddenly be inconvenient when you suddenly decide you actually need a lot more cheap workers. Hoisted on their own petard.