Baby you can drive my Vespa

Dinner table conversation the other night brought up the topic of the price of gasoline.

I had remarked to my Supermodel Wife that the QuickTrip on the way home showed the price of $3.19 a gallon -- for the cheap 86 octane stuff.

"I don't get it," she said. "What has happened that the price is going up? What has changed."

My answer? Nothing has changed.

People are still driving, which means there is a demand. Drivers continue to be willing to pay the higher prices. Take us, for example. Even with the per gallon price north of $3, we're still planning an out-of-town trips. We went to a wedding last weekend and we'll be traveling to a graduation ceremony soon.

Our behavior isn't changing. Or is it?

This USA Today reported that for the first time since the early 1980s, drivers are cutting back on their miles.

The growth in miles driven has leveled off dramatically in the past 18 months after 25 years of steady climbs despite the addition of more than 1 million drivers to the nation's streets and highways since 2005. Miles driven in February declined 1.9% from February 2006 before rebounding slightly for a 0.3% year-over-year gain in March, data from the Federal Highway Administration show. That's in sharp contrast to the average annual growth rate of 2.7% recorded from 1980 through 2005.

The article points out that the price of gasoline is only part of the reason for lower miles driven. There are social and demographic causes as well, including a trend of upwardly mobile professionals moving into revitalized city centers and in increase in the use of public transportation.

So now it seems the rubber is meeting the road (or rather, not meeting it). The response by the petroleum industry will be interesting. Will there suddenly be a miraculous increase in gasoline production to increase supplies, stabilize prices and keep drivers driving? Do "they" think they have found the breaking point, and now want to stay as close as possible without going over?

Regardless, I don't think we'll see gas below $3.00 a gallon again.

But on the bright side, this information will help me make the case to my Supermodel Wife that I should start commuting to work on a new Vespa.

tagged: oil, gasoline, gas prices, peak oil, USAToday, drivers, Vespa

Friday Blogthing: Who wants to live forever

There's an old saying that nobody wants to live to be 100... until they're 99.

This survey says it looks "pretty likely" that I'll live to be 100. I'm not so sure 67% probability is likely enough for my taste. Maybe I'd better start working on that.

Chance You'll Live to 100: 67%

100 is looking pretty likely for you right now. You've made your health a priority. So kick back, keep doing what you're doing, and enjoy the great life you've made for yourself. And you might get to see what the world is like 70, 80, or even 90 years from now.

Will You Live to 100?

tagged: 100, survey, quiz, birthday, mortality, longevity

Inaugural Angry Blogger Award

So I'm reading through my usual lineup of blogs yesterday and got to Dan's post about how the Global Warming/Energy Consumption issue has become such a polarized debate.

Dan linked to a report that NASA satellite data showed that in 2005, enough ice to cover California melted in Antarctica.

I read the report and came to the final sentence..."No further melting has been detected through March 2007."

Maybe there hasn't been further significant ice melt in the past two years. Maybe there has been ice buildup. Maybe the data just isn't available yet. Regardless, this seemed to me like it could use a little more elaboration, and I posted as much in Dan's comments.

Hell, it doesn't really change the climate debate one way or the other, I was just curious.

But the winner of the inaugural Angry Blogger Award didn't take kindly to my curiosity. A commenter know only as "les" invited me, after what I thought was a pretty vanilla comment by myself, to "Get a fucking clue or shut up."

The funny thing is that a lot of (not all) Liberal bloggers like to position themselves as being on the side of open mindedness, curiosity and the scientific method.

"Ask questions," they say. "Don't take it on faith. Be skeptical."

Frankly, my comment wasn't even very skeptical. In more than two years, I don't recall every writing that I think global climate change is hooey. I've called out AlGore for being a hypocrite about it, sure, but that's a bit of a different issue.

Anyway, "les" did prove Dan's point... that the issue is politically polarizing. He probably didn't intend to make a bad example of himself, to assume he knows my position on the issue based on an innocent and relatively innocuous question. He revealed himself to be the kind of prejudice, knee-jerk, hysterical, red-in-the-face, frothing-at-the-mouth fanatic that most Liberals criticize.

So for showing that he was the Jerry Falwell of Liberals yesterday, I confer upon "les" the Angry Blogger Award.

Congratulations

Angry Blogger Award

Dude, chill out

tagged: global warming, climate change, blogger, liberal, fanatic, NASA, environmentalist, Angry Blogger Award

Book Report: The Blind Side

Title: The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game
Author: Michael Lewis, author of Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game

Synopsis:
Through an amazing and rare series of events, a young man from the ghettos of Memphis changes his destiny, avoiding an almost certain short life in a drug gang to become one of the most anticipated potential NFL players in years.

My thoughts:
In The Blind Side, Michael Lewis relates the story of a young kid, Michael Oher, who suffers from every conceivable social disadvantage in life except for the fact that his substantial physical gifts make him uniquely suited to play the second-most important position on the college/NFL football team: left tackle.

Lewis gives a good primer on how the left tackle position became such an important role on the team. Starting with the career ending leg injury suffered by Joe Theismann on national television in 1984 through the current day NFL where some left tackles get paid more that quarterbacks, Lewis walks us through some of the reasons why "In football, as in real life, the value we place on people changes with the rules of the game they play."

But this football primer is really just to set the background for the story of Oher. Faced with the huge hurdles of race, poverty and lack of education, Oher finds a way to leverage his one advantage: That he hit the genetic lottery.

It turns out that, through the chance of natural selection or a gift of god, Oher has the body of a prototypical NFL left tackle. If he can only overcome his lack of education, a murdered father, a drug addicted mother, and a society that seems not even to know he exists, he has a chance to earn millions playing a game for which he seems specifically designed.

Luckily he meets a family in Memphis. A rich, white, evangelical Christian family no less, that takes him in, sees to his education and only then allows him to set off on his journey to the NFL.

There are many setbacks along the way as you can imagine, car accidents, academic troubles, even an investigation by the NCAA. But the story, like all good stories, ends with a beginning -- in this case the beginning of Oher’s football career. The next chapter will be written this fall, Oher’s junior season at Ole Miss and it’s one I'm keen to follow when football season starts.

The description of Oher's journey from the ghetto to a college scholarship and the stories of those who helped him along the way are very compelling. Lewis' writing is solid, and tends to get in the way of the story only rarely.

Rating: Recommended.

tagged: books, literature, Michael Lewis, football, sports, Michael Oher, NFL, Ole Miss, The Blind Side

YouTube Tuesday: Fierce Blue Ascot

I don't know about you, but if fashion is cyclical I dread the return of the electric-synth gender ambiguity that dominated pop music during the 1980s.

You know, that whole era of big hair, lots of makeup, frilly clothes and musical instruments that play themselves?



This is some kind of marketing campaign for Sprint's music download service. The actor playing "Ian" is Dominic Keating, a star of the ill-conceived Star Trek: Enterprise series.

Still this video is completely plausible. Such a band could have existed and produced such a song. The parody is spot on, and it's good to see companies taking a risk like this.

UPDATE: I just discovered that you can download a copy of the mp3 (for strictly ironic purposes of course).

tagged: movies, YouTube, video, Star Trek, Enterprise

YouTube Tuesday: Scientonomy

Yesterday the BBC program Panorama aired an episode which attempted to dig a little bit into Scientology. The "religion" is trying to gain recognition as a religion in the UK, over the objection of citizen groups.

I watched the 30-minute program online. Here's the first 10 minutes. You can watch the rest here.



The Scientologists' main spokesman in the piece is Tommy Davis. This guy does his best to look like Agent Smith while following the BBC reporter around, gettin' all up in his grill, and basically harassing and impeding him the whole time.

The pestering continues on and on until, in an understandable fit of frustration, the reporter John Sweeney completely looses it with an old school shout down. Of course if I were in Sweeney's shoes, I'd be the subject of an assault charge for trying to knock the Raybans off that pencil-necked little fascist.

Unfortunately, Tommy Davis' lack of PR acumen only serves to strengthen the public perception that Scientologists are crazy, whacked-out, paranoid, cultist Nazis. They obviously don't "get" that when you act like your batshit crazy, people assume that you are, in fact, batshit crazy.

If they want my advice, they'll give honest answers to the questions. Or, if they actually are the shysters everyone thinks they are, make up elaborate but plausible lies.

But following people around, harassing them, provoking them only makes it look like they have something to hide.

tagged: movies, YouTube, video, BBC, Panorama, Tommy Davis, scientology, cult, religion

It was a beautiful day

We were looking for something fun, local and inexpensive to do after lunch on Sunday, and since we were in the neighborhood we opted for a stroll through the sculpture Kansas City Sculpture Park.

Our four-year-old was impressed with the Henry Moores... for about 10 minutes. Then she was more interested in finding a shady patch of ground to play in the dirt.

But it was a nice stroll nonetheless.

The new Bloch Building looks terrific framed against the lush landscaping. I was very impressed with how well the it integrates with the south lawn of the museum. It becomes almost a wall of a large outdoor room, creating a intimate experience in a large landscape.

PS- If you can't wait to see the inside of the Bloch Building, there's another really good slide show of the interior online at Architecture for Art.


tagged: Steven Holl, Nelson Atkins, art, architecture, Kansas City, museum, sculpture, Henry Moore

Friday Blogthing: Hey, you can't argue with the Celts

You Are An Olive Tree

You're a warm, kind person, and you always seem to be the mediator. Balanced and reasonable, people can count on you to be tolerant. You have a well developed sense of justice - and avoid aggression and violence. Your idea of a perfect day? Reading in the afternoon sun. You are cheerful, sensitive, empathetic, and free of jealousy.

What's Your Celtic Horoscope?

tagged: Celtic, horoscope, olive tree, blog, quiz

Political football

Well, this seems like it should be pretty easy to figure out.

Jim Quinn, a political radio talk show host in Pittsburgh, has claimed on the air that he has a "source with authority" who says that Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius made remarks about the poor response of the National Guard to the Greensburg tornado at the behest of Howard "Barbaric Yawp" Dean and top Democratic Party leadership.

The implication of course, is that the situation was dramatized and exaggerated for political gain. That in fact, the response was more than adequate.

According the source, Sebelius called Sen. Sam Brownback to apologize for her remarks, saying she was sorry and that the DNC had told her "we can't let an opportunity like this go by." The source said Sebelius was told not to ask for National Guard help, so that the situation could later be spun as a lack of response.

For his part, Brownback was (reportedly) saddened and disappointed by the Gov.'s conduct.

Of course, none of this has been confirmed. It's definitely plausible, and I wouldn't put it past Dean and the Dems to try to make political hay. Of course, I wouldn't put it past political talk show hosts to make up this sort story for the sake of politics an ratings.

It seems to me, though, that a phone call could settle this whole thing before it gets started. Get Sebelius and Brownback on the phone, have them explain the situation. Either she said that stuff, or she didn't. Either she made the call, or not (hell, you could probably just check some phone records if you don't trust the two principles involved).

Get them on the same call together and they'll have to agree on what happened. Then let the shit hit the fan or not.

UPDATE [10:18 p.m.]: J.D. is keeping it skeptical over at Evolution. No definitive "evidence" one way or the other, but it sounds like J.D. is leaning toward calling BS on this story.

tagged: Greensburg, Kansas, Kathleen Sebelius, Sam Brownback, politics, Howard Dean, opportunism

Out on a Limbaugh

The problem with being a jerk in the broad category of political discussion, is that it often has an affect opposite of said jerk's intentions.

For example, a certain cretin from Topeka (which, I won't name in this form for reasons which I have previously explained), convinces more people that he is wrong the more he speaks.

Worldwide, Muslims didn't make any new allies when they began burning embassies in response to editorial cartoons.

Likewise, the vandal who defaced a billboard of Rush Limbaugh in Baltimore only provides the media with a reason to give Limbaugh free promotion via news stories.

No doubt, the vandal (probably a liberal), gained some short-term personal satisfaction from the act of vandalism (assuming s/he feels no guilt from the criminal act). But the result is a raft of news stories, additional notoriety, a bump in blog references and possibly a spike in listenership for Limbaugh's program.

If a person can't look objectively at a situation and discuss topics rationally, it's usually a better decision to just turn the radio dial to Air America (if it's still on the air).

tagged: politics, Rush Limbaugh, liberal, vandalism, free speech