Oblivion Nation
During the week of May 17, Paris Hilton was playing high-stakes poker in Cannes with her new boyfriend forever Doug Reinhardt, who formerly knocked boots with Amanda Bynes and escorted Lauren Conrad to the prom, in their pre-celeb pre-history.
In Washington a Democratic President announced plans to regulate the automobile industry only a few months after the automobile industry went bankrupt, and after only seven years of a bloody occupation, the Pentagon finally acknowledged that “the United States cannot succeed in Afghanistan if the American military keeps killing Afghan civilians.”
I guess you could call it progress, for the oblivion nation.
Note:
Mr. Obama wants to push up the effective date of the 35 mile a gallon fuel economy standard former Pres. Bush approved in the 2007 energy bill, from 2020 to 2016. Administration officials say a 30% reduction would eliminate 900 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions, and they say a 30% increase in fuel economy would reduce our oil imports by 1.8 billion barrels, between 2016 and 2020. That’s the equivalent, they say, all the oil imported during a year, from Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Libya and Syria. It’s also the equivalent of taking 58 million cars off the road for an entire year.
Since there are 250 million cars on the road in the USA, “the equivalent of taking 58 million cars off the road for an entire year” over the 4 year period between 2016 and 2020 would reduce emissions by (58/250)/4)… for a total reduction of 6% of emissions from cars, between 2016 and 2020.
So it’s fair to say that Obama is 6% better than Bush on the issue of automobile emissions.
But that’s only between 2016 and 2020, and after 2020, the Bush plan to reduce automobile emissions and the Obama plan to reduce automobile emissions are exactly the same!
Nice bit of context there Ruta on the 'wonderful' new CAFE standards.
Just a general thought: I'm not a fan of Obama, much like you, especially on those issues that I know a bit about, such as the bailout. But on many things, eg. the carbon emissions bill working its way through congress, I find there is a bit too much focus on Obama's administration and too little focus - that is, PRESSURE - on the congressional players blocking and watering down these things. These people should be hung out to dry as well!
May 20, 2009 12:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
When the time comes to hang those suckers, I'll bring the rope and you bring the lemonade!
But in the meantime, if Obama doesn't ask, nobody can tell what he really, really wants.
He asked for a humongous multi-trillion-dollar bailout, and got it, and then he asked for a penny-ante reform of credit-card regulations, and penny-ante relief for homeowners threatened with foreclosure, and penny-ante assistance for long-term unemployment...
There's obviously a lot of obstructionism from Blue-Dog Democrats, but Obama hasn't exactly given them a tsunami of reform to obstruct.
That guy should be making waves, and he's making ripples!
May 20, 2009 12:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
"That guy should be making waves, and he's making ripples!"
Yeah, agreed.
I don't know if I'm framing this wrong. But unlike alot of people around here, I never expected much from Obama, at best a return to 'moderate' Corporatism from simple batshit kleptocracy. For instance I don't think he's to the left of the median Democrat in congress. If he's not making noise, it's because he's happy with the bullshit bills they're producing in congress and fine with the decent bills that get thrown out. Not a peep when the bankruptcy reform bill failed: He Doesn't Care. His supporters, for some reason, think it's all a secret plan for radical reform. God know why...
Seriously, though. Who is writing these big bills - health care and climate change? As far as I can tell, Obama is sitting on his hands waiting for someone to hand him something to sign. The action's in Congress.
good post! Rec'd!
May 20, 2009 12:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
I too like the "waves, not ripples" notion.
Maybe Obama thinks the Presidency, aside from posturing (bully pulpit, diplomatic meetings, etc), should be about following the will of Congress. That's not a shift from a kleptocracy, it's a shift from a "strong President" to a normal one, in some views.
So the call to kick butt on the Hill is quite correct.
May 20, 2009 2:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh my God, the will of what Congress? Harry Reid? Boehner? The Blue Dogs? Did we elect a powerful executive to just leave things to the legislative branch? Like that's what he has any intention of doing?
May 20, 2009 6:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hmmm, good point.
May 20, 2009 6:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, since Obama doesn't seem to be acting powerfully in the sense given here, yes, it's up to Congress to pass laws directing Obama to do stuff.
May 20, 2009 7:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Since this change to the CAFE standard is so highly unsatisfactory to you, I think it is incumbent upon you to tell us what you think it should have been set at.
May 20, 2009 1:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Something like the top contenders here, probably.
May 20, 2009 1:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Good answer, demosaur!
Europe and Japan are going for 45+ mpg, and it isn't because they have secret access to technology from a distant galaxy.
If we had the will, we could find a way.
May 20, 2009 6:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
"The top contenders" there, aren't apples to apples with our numbers. The EU has a "voluntary agreement" with automakers to hit carbon output reductions (not milage increases). The mpg numbers on that graph were basically just pulled out of someone's ass after scribbling on the back of an envelope. Additionally, the European standards are "voluntary" and their manufacturers aren't meeting them. The EU says its going to have to step in and regulate but, so far, no regs have issued. We are already regulating, right now, with real numbers and real legally binding requirements. Boo for us, yay for Europe.
Japan's standard is far more complex and involved than ours is. It is based on multiple weight classes and allows swapping of credits from one class to another and has all the kind of gadgetry in which they delight. I have little doubt that the end result will be more efficient cars than we have but, I do not know how anyone can translate their standard into our one comparable to ours.
Our standard is going to be a 39 mpg averge for cars by 2016 and a 30 mpg average for cars and SUVs. a 39 MPG standard for cars is going to be pretty damn respectable even by the standards of countries smaller than most of our states--or most of our big American asses, really--where no one has a two hour commute. As to the SUVs, what are you going to do, ban them? Yeah, I'd like to too. I'm sure the new Republican congress and president who'd follow the attempt wouldn't overturn that law.
May 20, 2009 7:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ruta, why do you hate our cars so much? You are just a hatter.
Hater.
Potatter.
Potater.
No no, really, I'm fine. You run on ahead and have your debate. I'll just sit here for a time, playing. Tomatter. Tomater.
By the way it's a pretty great move. Very very hard to see how we could have gone a whole heck of a lot faster on CAFE, while having much if any hope of making cars here. The real issue after this isn't CAFE, it's how much they can knock down costs and pump up the volume on plug-in hybrids and all-electrics. If we do that, we'll go roaring past any CAFE standard, whether 40 or 50 mpg or whatever. If we can't do that, it's the too little, too late slog.
May 20, 2009 3:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Quinn...
I realize that where your eight hairy little legs dance merrily upon the frozen hind-quarters of Cana-zhakstan (or have you returned to a Hibernian sister-city of Novo Sibirsk?), global warming probably sounds like a fantastical invention of pointy-headed futurists, but down here in the oblivion nation we're just two jumps away from full-tilt desertification, where you finally arrive at a desert.
And yes, quinn...
Obama's plan to reduce emissions from cars by 6% in the next ten years is WAY too little, and WAY too late, and our little boat is already tipping over.
And so on, through hundreds of examples with which every intelligent person is already nauseatingly familiar.
And yes, again, Obama's plan to reduce emissions from cars by 6% in the next ten years is WAY too little, and WAY too late.
May 20, 2009 4:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yup. This shit has been my working life for 20 years. I'm just sayin', the CAFE thing's not that bad. Bush had to move, and Obama's speeding that up. That's all good. We couldn't really get a much more monumental shift in car production than this, and doin' it with $2 gas? Besides, we can always ratchet it up again.
The key is to shift from incremental changes in CAFE and to flip the internal combustion engine over to something else. Anything else is just time-wasting. Even all the public transit and rail talk. We're in cars, our world is built for cars, global warming is roaring up on our heels, so we have to change the car. Let's build all the transit and rail we can, and telecommute and walk and cycle and on and on. But the single biggest move is the electrification of the automobile - from petroleum to electricity. And we're already close. We've got 10 plug-in hybrids just in our Dept now, and when you go from 30 or 50 mpg to 150 mpg, your world looks a lot different. And your atmosphere.
So I'm happy to kick Obama's ass, but the truth is, of anyone in Congress, who was onto plug-in's and pushing legislation first? Obama. I've heard him talk about this stuff, and how it fits with new renewable electricity, and the smart grid, and the dude knows this field, cold. Better than any politician I've heard speak on it.
So if I'm gonna hammer him, it'll be if he backs off the push to get plug-in's on the road, or totally off cap and trade, etc. Not for going slow on CAFE.
Shit. Now you're gonna come hammering on me as an Obamabot. Drat. Retrieve colander from files. Strap to head.
Ok. I'm ready.
May 20, 2009 5:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
I already gave credit where credit is due!
Where were you during 18 months of campaigning? Did you miss his inspiring slogan...
Hope, Change, and 6% better than Bush!
Harharharhar!!!
Just because a bunch of ignorant kiddies didn't understand that they were buying...
Hope, Change, and 6% better than Bush!
...and invested their dreams in a soulless con-man...
It's still no reason for anyone except a millenarian left-wing fanatic to claim that this weak-ass shit is WAY too little, and WAY too late, and insult our great President...
Barack "6% better than Bush" Obama!
May 20, 2009 5:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Obama was 6% better than McCain, vote-wise.
Do you realize how HUGE a 6% difference is in politics?
May 20, 2009 7:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
How much of an improvement are plug ins, Quinn? They still use electricity that in many cases in the U.S. at least is generated by coal plants. It takes the Co2 off the road and shifts it somewhere else.
France now has a car that runs on compressed air. What do you know about that?
May 20, 2009 6:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Coal power is not inherently inefficient, but in practice it is. The best reason to push a plugin hybrid is that it is available for storing grid peaks generated by wind and solar. They can also beat the mileage of the existing parallel design, being series, with a maximal-efficiency engine running only as a generator and feeding into the electric output motors. They will also boost the market for improved battery designs.
If we see any supply interruptions, as in the 70s, or after Katrina, people will be interested in a car that they can keep topped up with their own solar or wind at home.
May 20, 2009 7:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
The compressed air idea is cool, but it takes energy from somewhere to compress it, and you have some losses (obviously) during compression, storage, decompression, etc.
Electricity from batteries I love because I know it has really high efficiencies; no tailpipe emissions; it's quiet as hell; and most important, you can generate electricity from a dozen different sources - your roof, local wind-farms, micro-hydro, deep geo, ocean/wave, you name it. As Tom says, the magic is that as you add batteries to cars, you can actually add MORE wind and solar to the grid - because the cars themselves ease the key limitation, the inability to "store" most renewably-generated power. The modelling I've seen says the cars enable you to add not 10% or 20% wind and solar to the grid, but 50% or more. So no reason we won't all be "riding the wind" (as Austin says) or "riding on a sunbeam."
The secret to this, and why it absolutely WILL happen - as compared to a lot of pipedreams - is simple. Consumer electronics. Electronics is a massive, unstoppable global industry, and they are DRIVEN to make batteries smaller, lighter, safer, more powerful. This has created an industrial interest - and R&D powerhouse - outsidethe automotive industry. i.e. It can't be go slow'ed, or bullshitted about. When amateurs can weld together thousands of tiny lithium ion batteries from Radio Shack, and those cars outrun anything gas-powered on the local dragstrips, it's all over. We've got 12 converted plug-ins here, from a company originally out of Toronto, installation done by kids at a local College, it gets 100-150 mpg, and the all-in extra cost is $12,000. For that, we get out gasoline for the equivalent of 30 cents/gallon. Any kind of mass production can cut that cost, and you're in business.
iPods and cell phones driving change in cars. Who'dathunkit?
May 20, 2009 11:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
You're absolutely right Q! We need electric vehicles. The automobile is the #1 culprit in global warming. If we got all but the big, heavy trucks off gas and powered electrically we would be well on our way to solving global warming.
The thing is, we already have the technology and the companies could have had these vehicles on the road years ago. It's a crime that we don't have them right now.
May 21, 2009 12:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
When I think of plug-in, I can just see the electric meter whirling in my mind's eye with big dollar sign ka-chings every revolution.
We still don't have the infrastructure where I live nor in most of the U.S, I think. Does Canada have a distribution system in place? Until we get the infrastructure to distribute wind or solar so we can store the energy, I can't see plug-ins being very beneficial.
May 21, 2009 9:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
Heya Quinn:
I just wanted to carry over a reply from Doc Nebula's blog.
No.... quality of writing is not proportional to one's mean-spiritidness. The job of the writer in particular and the artist in general is to provoke. Whether that is thought or feeling depends on the writer and the reader and how they cooperate. But writer's are mean-spirited upper-deckers because provocation is mean on any level. Pop commercial writers work to keep people asleep and entertained. Writers of literature work to keep people awake, informed, and doubtful.
So, don't just think that I meant that writers can get away with being snide petty assholes. That's only partly true. But a writer of quality will kick your ass and make you think that you deserved it:
"I judge the quality of any writtern work by how well it cuts off my head." - Emily Dickinson.
May 20, 2009 7:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
Do you happen to have a source for that "quote" from Emily Dickinson?
Or maybe you were confusing Emily Dickinson with your cousin, Emily Schmoo from Sheboygan...
May 20, 2009 7:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
If I read a book (and) it makes me so cold that no fire can ever warm me, then I know it is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, then I know it is poetry.
Sorry to all for the false attribution. I should know better than to try and quote from memory.
May 20, 2009 10:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks Z. Am pondering the provocation idea. As for Dickinson, funny, but I'd never before - not once - been interested in her. I liked this quote, so went hunting - am interested in her now.
I always liked making up false quotes & attributions. The trick was, to have read more than your prof, to immerse yourself in the authors, and then... let 'er rip. They'd catch me now and then, and we'd have a good laugh and a discussion about whether the author should have said it. My thesis was a masterpiece though. A lot of smart-ass Nietzsche cracks, some absolutely perfectly impenetrable Habermas paragraphs, lots of made up authors.
As Churchill once said, "Fuck 'em if they can't take a joke."
May 20, 2009 11:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Now at last the "writer" Zipperupus has a project worthy of his "talent!"
Mangled Poets for... just quinn, I guess.
But meanwhile, when some semi-literate bozo who has called me a "moron" over and over and over on TPMCafe decides to hijack a thread under one of my diaries with yet another lame-brained disquisition about the nature of literature, including a mangled "quote" from Emily Dickinson...
I don't have to treat it with out-of-proportion respect just to prove to myself that I really am "a defender of the little people."
May 21, 2009 12:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
This Emily Schmoo from Sheboygan sounds hot. Better crank up the poetry module.
Ahem.
"Shall I compare you to a burning rad?
Your breasts, sinful mukluks, without the stank.
Your breath, smokey, but not near as bad as a bear's.
Your feet, almost always aligned, good as a SkiDoo.
I like you.
You is hot! (h/t to Ruta for that last bit.)"
Think Schmoo'll like it?
May 21, 2009 1:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
Schmoo has already stripped for you, quinn, and scared all the horses off the road.
May 21, 2009 1:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
Clang clang clang. Welcome to the club.
May 20, 2009 10:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
That's a first step in my view. Obama will move forward on alternative energy when he gets some of the other more pressing crises under control. You must be one of the people who thought he was Jesus Christ and could perform miracles.
May 21, 2009 9:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
"So I'm happy to kick Obama's ass,"
When you mean happy to kick his ass, you mean you won't hesitate to bash him when you believe he's in the wrong. Because if that's what you mean i'm all for that as well. Plus you make a good point Quinn.
May 20, 2009 5:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
It should be remembered that Paris Hilton offered the most concise, focused policy session of the whole 2008 campaign. Without her, Sarah Palin would have been no walk-on - just a shadow of Paris when it comes down to it. Paris would have had Katie Couric wrapped up in bondage gear 3 minutes into the interview, no contest. Can only imagine what her convention speech would have been like.
May 20, 2009 6:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
You don't have to imagine it...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4WDjuiQmxA
Regardez, et pleurez!
May 20, 2009 7:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wow, that was painful even for me. But yes, brings tears to my eyes that even she can get the "waterboarding is torture" part right, and reaching out to our Latino community with the chihuahua? Brilliant PR. And "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" at the executive level brings a whole different meaning to the phrase, her boy toys included.
May 21, 2009 2:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
Much as it pains me to poke a hole in your invariable premise that Obama is almost indistinguishable from Bush, the facile 6% calculation you've based this post on is completely bogus.
The 35.5 mpg number represents the standard in the last year. That gets phased in, starting in 2011 and increasing over the next five years until it hits 39 mpg for cars and 30 for trucks.
The standard in the 2007 energy bill--passed by a Democratic Congress and reluctantly signed by Bush after seven years of sabotage and foot-dragging due to the political pressure caused by $5.00 a gallon gas--was 35 mpg by 2020. Somehow, however, though he signed the bill, Bush never got around to getting the necessary regulations to implement the act in place. He tried, oh how he tried, but, gosh darn it, those darn courts didn't think his proposed regulations were compliant with what the law required. Darn those courts. Oh well, back to the drawing board and, suddenly, its January, 2009. Oh well, not his job anymore.
But let's pretend Bush acted in good faith to see that the laws were faithfully executed (yeah, I know its stretch, but work with me here) and implemented the necessary regulations. Had he done so, that 35 mpg standard from the 2007 bill would have been phased in over the entire period between whenever he got around to starting it, call it 2011 for fun, and 2020.
Comparing Obama's real proposed regulations to the imaginary ones Bush put into place, the milage requirements for vehicles made between 2011 and 2016 is much higher each year than they would be under the more gradual increase mandated under the imaginary Bush regulations because Bush's regs take longer to get to the (slightly lower than Obama's 35.5 mpg) 35 mpg average.
Compressing the time frame makes the upward curve in required milage each year steeper. See how that works?
That means that cars replaced in or added to the national fleet in each year between 2011 and 2020 have much better milage under the Obama regulations than they would have under the imaginary Bush regulations. As a result, the average fuel economy of the entire U.S. auto fleet between 2011 and 2020 increases dramatically more than 6% under Obama than under Bush. How much more? Can't say for sure because, as it happens, Bush never managed to successfully get regulations imposing the standard he "approved" in 2007 into place. But a hell of a lot more than 6%.
May 20, 2009 8:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
Some folks are never satisfied. They want Dennis Kucinich (or is it Nader?) with a Kennedy smile and LBJ's political muscle.
I just like not being embarrassed by my president.
May 20, 2009 10:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Same here Tom. Feel good that after eight years you got a President we don't need to be ashamed of.
May 21, 2009 1:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
It's easy to believe that Obama really is the Messiah...
... as long as you also believe that whatever he proposes is already "real."
And if the rest of us can't see Obama's "real" emissions limits already out there on the road...
I guess we aren't "the suckers he was waiting for."
May 20, 2009 11:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
What happened to "sociopathic conman?" What's the point of hammering us for months with a message, and then just pissing off and trying out complete shite like "The suckers he was waiting for?" and "6% better than Bush?"
Where's the consistency? As the evidence of betrayal comes rolling in, who's going to be there to gloat? Somebody has to be, Ruta. It's this kind of irresponsible commentary that weakens the cut & thrust of modern debate.
Harharharhar dammit! See that? Tried, tested, true.
Next thing you know, Seaton'll be wearing a black suit & sending us videos from Spain.
I miss the old days.
May 21, 2009 12:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
Dude, this was a reply to the fourth or fifth silly comment from NCStevie, and I could just barely focus my eyes on it, much less my brain, much less my diminishing fund of outrage, which is rapidly turning into indifference.
Yeah, and why bother replying to Stevie?
Of course Obama's plans are just wind-eggs, and infinitely malleable according to the dictates of political convenience...
But the time when any of us on the blogs, or all of us together could change anything came and went last spring, when unanimous loathing on the interent could have crippled Obama's fund-raising machine, and put a real stutter into Hillary Clinton's robot campaign.
Was it ever possible to produce a candidate like Wesley Clark or Kucinich... which is just to say, an honest candidate?
I don't know, but I know that the time when any of us bloggers could have mattered has come and gone.
Now it's just a habit for me, and more like witnessing than proving anything to anybody.
May 21, 2009 1:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
"Yeah, and why bother replying to Stevie?"
Because the guy actually makes sense when he speaks and all you sound like is a whiny cry baby when you speak because your not getting exactly what you want. That's why.
All that comes out of your mouth is fuck Obama this and fuck Obama that. And you want me to take you seriously when all that comes out of your post is pure hate and spite? You got a obsession towards the President that's not healthy and I suggest you find some way to chill out once in awhile.
Sorry Ruta, people reply to NC Steve because he actually makes sense and can produce a reasonable thought. You on the other hand can't.
Oh and by the way Kucinich is nothing but a purist who would get his clocked cleaned by the Republicans. He never would stand a chance againist McCain. Sorry if I burst your bubble on that one.
Goodbye.
May 21, 2009 1:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think his point is that if you don't like Kucinich, 2 years ago you could have pushed for some other honest candidate who might have actually tried to implement campaign promises.
For me, my whole support of Hillary was based around "close enough for government work", or the lazy ideal ("lazy fairy government"?). For those with greater aspirations, then was the time.
May 21, 2009 2:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
Ruta. I suspect we'd like to see some of the same changes. As for Obama, right now I really don't know. I see some signs of hope. On the larger stuff, I feel kinda sick to my stomach - the banks, the wars, health care. No need to over or understate it, it's better than the GOP, but not nearly what I'd hoped.
Right now feels like an in-between time to me. The great huff and puff economic reinflation strategy is the real story of the day. I predicted an Obama bubble as he went along with Summers and co, and tried to save the system on its own terms. But I think it's likely to deflate again. We'll see, but I just don't think they can bust gravity on this one.
And if it deflates, every single policy action being taken today will be erased - as though written in water. This will all look like a false start.
So that's my torn-in-half feeling. I don't like where we're going on a number of fronts. But I think this path is gonna fail, and economically, it'll get worse. Which will then reopen all of these things, perhaps to be done better... or worse.
Which, oddly enough, means it's all still to play for.
May 21, 2009 2:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
Obama keeps surprising most of the honest commenters on the internet on the downside.
For example, it's worse than David Sirota thought, and he's backing off from blogging.
It's even worse than I thought, "sociopathic con-man" and all.
Believe it or not, I also feel a glimmer of hope every once in a while, and imagine that even the sociopath Obama has to figure that making things work on some level is in his own self-interest.
But what does he see as his self-interest? I don't know.
So if I had to bet, I would go with the flow of things, and bet that Obama will surprise us all again, even me, on the downside, and there are plenty of open avenues on the downside.
If we bomb Iran, or greenlight Israel to bomb Iran, what happens next?
Although it isn't the sort of factor that we lefties like to consider, it's probably worth mentioning that all Obama's main people are Jewish... his main financial backer Penny Pritzker, his political guru David Axelrod, and his chief of staff Rahm Emanuel. With Iran testing medium-range missiles, and accumulating nuclear material as fast as they can...
What happens next?
And as quinn so intelligently describes it, if a real deflationary spiral continues to develop, all bets are off with everybody's economic forecasts. At some point, there isn't any more money to borrow, and running the printing presses at the mint 24/7 turns it all into play-money.
Does that finally break into runaway inflation? Or do commodity prices just collapse, and nobody can sell anything, or hire anybody.
I don't know.
It was easy for me to imagine how an intelligent progressive like Kucinich could do a lot of good, or a super-manager like Wesley Clark could make all the parts work together...
But with Obama's weak little initiatives and concessions to Republicans, I can't see an upside even in the short-term, much less any further out.
May 21, 2009 3:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well, as we get more and more of these decisions, I think the "why of Obama" should become clearer if it isn't already. He's the prodigy of a World Bank/USAID mother and a Hawaiian bank VP as much as anything, gave up his mother and his step-father's country club/oil life (he was a government lobbyist for Mobil) in Indonesia to move back to that prep school lifestyle in Hawaii, majored in Poli Sci/international relations, then on to Law School.
If you start looking at the IMF/World Bank's overreaching throughout the years, some of its dismal failures despite its greatest optimism, you see one huge chunk of Obama's ethos. Charity, policy and monied interest - the triumvirate or trifecta that's made Africa the success it is today. Follow through to the intersection of public works, investment and politics in Chicago, and I think you can draw a pretty straight prediction of where we're headed under any scenario. Not a socialist but a social engineer, comfortable with monied interests and money solutions, play the long-term, no rash decisions, keep your sponsors happy, work from one contract to another - i.e. always anticipate what could be the next job.
May 21, 2009 6:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
Good point on the cafe standards, we are a good 10-15 years behind where we oughtta be on mileage, but what we really need is cars that have zero emissions. We were on that road in the Clinton years and the auto manufacturers demonstrated beyond doubt they can produce such cars but then they undermined the rules and regs and that's how we got hybrids instead of zero emissions vehicles powered by electricity alone. Anyone who hasn't seen the movie: "Who Killed the Electric Car" really ought to.
But, at least Obama did something on this. You have to start somewhere. It's not enough, but it's more than before. I think the real push is needed, as indicated above, for zero emmissions autos instead of high mileage autos. If we could produce zero emmissions passenger cars and so that only large trucks burned gas or diesel we could impact the global climate problem in a huge way. We need for zero emmissions to be the goal and to focus on it.
May 20, 2009 11:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
"We need for zero emmissions to be the goal and to focus on it."
I agree.
The right time for gradual improvements in mileage was 1972, and now there's no hope that anything except radical readjustments can improve our long-term prospects, which are bleak enough no matter what we may do.
May 21, 2009 2:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
Why not get one of those nifty horse-drawn buggies from the Amish? The only emission you have to deal with you can scoop up with a shovel and recycle into fuel to heat your house, or your cave, during the winter. That way you would achieve your goals and set an example for the rest of us.
May 21, 2009 9:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
Oh great, a return to metropolitan horseshit disposal problems of the late 1800's.
May 21, 2009 11:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
Think of the jobs it would create, though, Des. Or maybe robots would be employed for that purpose - I can envision industrial grade ROOMBAs scurrying around, can't you?
May 21, 2009 2:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
My mind is large, it contains multitudes - I can envision most anything, including doggies-turned-RUR-mates scurrying the underground side of the city, trying to find one more load of Robot Depends just to make quota. Is this okay, or as the Doc says, one screw shy of a wall mount, I don't know, but I'm sure you all will fill me in.
May 21, 2009 4:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Not a good model, if you're interested in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
May 21, 2009 5:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
True, that occured to me, too.
May 21, 2009 5:10 PM | Reply | Permalink