A Christmas Card from Steve Conn

Steve Conn sends this Christmas Carol for his hometown of New Orleans. Steve was once a fixture in the Boulder music scene and often performed solo and with his band Gris Gris. Now a resident of the Memphis area he has contributed many a studio session on keyboards and accordian (my personal favorites) including a Grammy nominated performances with BeauSoleil and Arlo Guthrie.

Stop reading and start listening by clicking here.

The State of Alternate Fuels

This article originally appeared in the Minneapolis Star Tribune. From our recent experience it seems to me that a flexible gas tax that kept pump prices for regular near $3 a gallon would be the most effective incentive to motivate new car buyers. The proceeds could provide tax credits for hybrids that exceeded maybe 50 mpg. Notes in brackets {{}} are mine.

by Greg Gordon

WASHINGTON - Former CIA Director James Woolsey paints a dire scenario: A terrorist attack causes a months-long, 6 million-barrel reduction in Saudi Arabia's daily petroleum output, sending the price of oil skyrocketing past $100 a barrel.

Industry banker and author Matthew Simmons says the kingdom's oilfields are deteriorating anyway. And a recent New York Times story cited an intelligence report suggesting the Saudis lack the capacity to pump as much oil as they boast they can.

Even if nothing disrupts the projected flow of Middle East petroleum, Energy Department consultants warned earlier this year that "the world is fast approaching the inevitable peaking" of global oil production -- a problem "unlike any faced by modern industrial society."

They wrote that the United States and other nations are in a race with the clock to find alternative sources for oil, "the lifeblood of modern civilization," and avoid potential economic disaster.{{ This is really an opportunity to create a range of hitherto unseen energy conservation products. We really need to turn this problem on it's side. The US could take the lead in a whole new range of technologies, create jobs and save energy}}

After years -- or even decades -- of sitting on the fringe of the world oil debate, the issue of what to do when production dwindles is starting to get attention in Congress.

Last week, a bipartisan group of eight U.S. senators, including Minnesota Republican Norm Coleman, proposed legislation to accelerate the nation's shift to new energy sources in the nation's transportation sector, which guzzles 14 million barrels of oil each day.

Warning of a potential crisis, they proposed billions of dollars in tax incentives to spur development of vehicles powered by electric batteries, diesel, Minnesota-manufactured ethanol and exhaust-free hydrogen fuel cells. In the House, Rep. Gil Gutknecht, R-Minn., and 15 co-sponsors want all U.S. gasoline to contain a 10 percent blend of renewable fuel, as only Minnesota requires now.

If peaking production or rising demand lead to shortfalls of oil before a shift to alternative sources occurs, the global effect could be huge, the Energy Department consultants wrote. Developed countries would face inflation, rising unemployment and recession, they wrote, while Third World nations "will likely be even worse off."

U.S. companies and government agencies are already exploring the energy alternatives proposed by the senators, but progress has come at less than breakneck speed.

Experts say that high startup costs, technological hurdles, tepid consumer demand for pricier, fuel-efficient vehicles and other obstacles likely will prevent such products from significantly reducing U.S. oil imports for a decade or more without government intervention.

For example:

• Toyota, Honda, Ford and other auto makers are rolling out electric-and-gas hybrids, some advertised to get 60 miles per gallon.

Mary Ann Wright, chief of Ford's hybrid program, said the company's hybrids produce virtually no emissions or smog-forming gases. But based on their production schedule today, it will be years before hybrids comprise more than a small percentage of the U.S. fleet of 225 million cars and trucks.

• Production of corn-based, clean-burning ethanol will reach 8 billion gallons a year by 2012 under a new energy law, enough to replace 4 percent of today's daily U.S. oil consumption.

• In California, researchers have developed "plug-in hybrid" cars and vans that could get more than 100 miles per gallon by operating on new, more powerful lithium ion batteries for the first 20 to 60 miles. If their gas contained an 85 percent ethanol blend, the vehicles could get up to 500 miles to the gallon of petroleum. {{ Plug ins actually get me excited. They dovetail well with wind, solar, and other forms of alternatively generated electricity. Ethanol on the other hand doesn't do much for me since it is most likely produced from oil intensive farming methods that consume massive quantities of fossil fuel for production. Thanks for the advice Archer Daniels}}

Ford's Wright said no plug-in yet has enough durability, but they should in coming years.

• In Europe, nearly 47 percent of vehicles recently sold are powered by diesel oil and get up to 70 mpg. Nearly a dozen diesel models are available in the United States, and nearly half of the nation's service stations sell diesel. But diesel is a conservation measure, not a substitute for oil; its availability is constrained by tight U.S. refinery capacity. [[ Also current US diesel is too dirty with sulfer for the best of the current diesel engines to use. This should be remedied by legislation set to be in place next fall. That being said, diesel would provide much more impresive hybrid performance and fuel economy }}

• President Bush has thrown his influence -- and $1.2 billion in research money -- behind the development of hydrogen fuel cells as an exhaust-free substitute for gasoline. But researchers have yet to find a way to safely and cheaply store enough hydrogen under the hood to give cars a 300-mile range. Energy Department officials say it will be 15 years before hydrogen-powered vehicles will pass those tests.

Critics say the energy bill that Bush signed into law last summer will only modestly reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil. It offers tax credits ranging up to $3,000, beginning Jan. 1, for early buyers of hybrids or diesel-powered vehicles, but it does not toughen 25-year-old fuel efficiency standards for cars and trucks. {{ That's what $3-$4 gasoline does. Let consumers choose and forget about CAFE standards. Manufacturers have successfully gamed those for years . Also the current tax credits reward buyers of big hybrid SUVs to the same extent as smaller vehicles. The threshold should be set high enough to spur demand for the most efficient vehicles. 50 MPG seems like a good place to start. }}

U.S. isn't moving swiftly

Woolsey said in an interview that the administration is no longer "just asleep on these issues," but that the government still isn't moving swiftly enough to bring new technologies to full-scale production.

"We have done very little really, as a country, to promote the development and marketing of energy alternatives," said Sen. Mark Dayton, D-Minn., a former state energy and economic development commissioner. "We've given lip service to them."

Minnesota auto buyers' requests for hybrids such as the Toyota Prius and other fuel-efficient cars have accelerated since hurricanes Katrina and Rita sent gasoline prices temporarily soaring past $3 a gallon, said David Luther, chairman of Rudy Luther Automotive, one of the Twin Cities' largest dealerships. "I wouldn't call it a flood," he said.

Luther said some buyers of low-mileage SUVs seem to have the attitude that "they didn't save any buffalo for me."

Not everyone agrees that oil production is nearing a peak. "I don't think the evidence is there," said Daniel Yergin, founder of Massachusetts-based Cambridge Energy Research Associates.

His team of geologists and petroleum engineers has done an oilfield-by-oilfield analysis and concluded that world oil production capacity will increase by nearly 20 percent between 2004 and 2010, and that since the 1990s discoveries of new oil reserves have exceeded production.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) has projected the year 2037 as the most likely date for a global oil production peak, but the Energy Department consulting team led by Robert Hirsch said it found another EIA scenario for a peak in 2016 to be "much more credible."

"Whatever you think about peak oil," Woolsey said, "you need to be concerned about the possibility that in the very near term at any point ... regime change, government policy change or terrorist attacks could put a major, and perhaps even a long-duration spike on oil prices. ... We need to move away from oil in either case."

Copyright 2005 Star Tribune.

A Presidential Perspective

Back in 1976 I have to tell you I didn't think much of Jimmy Carter. I was firmly in the camp of California governor Jerry Brown when it came to favorites for the Democratic nomination for president. Nor was I thrilled with Carter's military buildup once he was elected. Carter, a nuclear engineer as well as peanut farmer was the most vocal and thoughtful of our recent presidents when asked about his religious beliefs.

In hind sight it looks like we missed a chance to change the course of many things back in the day. Thirty years on we struggle with many of the same energy and policy problems that cost Carter a second term. No president since has even tried to convince us that investment for the future requires sacrifice now.

Here is his perspective 25 years after telling us the truth snd earning retirement for his trouble.

This article appeared originally in the Los Angeles Times.

This isn't the real America

By Jimmy Carter, JIMMY CARTER was the 39th president of the United States. His newest book is "Our Endangered Values: America's Moral Crisis," published this month by Simon & Schuster.

IN RECENT YEARS, I have become increasingly concerned by a host of radical government policies that now threaten many basic principles espoused by all previous administrations, Democratic and Republican.

These include the rudimentary American commitment to peace, economic and social justice, civil liberties, our environment and human rights.

Also endangered are our historic commitments to providing citizens with truthful information, treating dissenting voices and beliefs with respect, state and local autonomy and fiscal responsibility.

At the same time, our political leaders have declared independence from the restraints of international organizations and have disavowed long-standing global agreements — including agreements on nuclear arms, control of biological weapons and the international system of justice.

Instead of our tradition of espousing peace as a national priority unless our security is directly threatened, we have proclaimed a policy of "preemptive war," an unabridged right to attack other nations unilaterally to change an unsavory regime or for other purposes. When there are serious differences with other nations, we brand them as international pariahs and refuse to permit direct discussions to resolve disputes.

Regardless of the costs, there are determined efforts by top U.S. leaders to exert American imperial dominance throughout the world.

These revolutionary policies have been orchestrated by those who believe that our nation's tremendous power and influence should not be internationally constrained. Even with our troops involved in combat and America facing the threat of additional terrorist attacks, our declaration of "You are either with us or against us!" has replaced the forming of alliances based on a clear comprehension of mutual interests, including the threat of terrorism.

Another disturbing realization is that, unlike during other times of national crisis, the burden of conflict is now concentrated exclusively on the few heroic men and women sent back repeatedly to fight in the quagmire of Iraq. The rest of our nation has not been asked to make any sacrifice, and every effort has been made to conceal or minimize public awareness of casualties.

Instead of cherishing our role as the great champion of human rights, we now find civil liberties and personal privacy grossly violated under some extreme provisions of the Patriot Act.

Of even greater concern is that the U.S. has repudiated the Geneva accords and espoused the use of torture in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, and secretly through proxy regimes elsewhere with the so-called extraordinary rendition program. It is embarrassing to see the president and vice president insisting that the CIA should be free to perpetrate "cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment" on people in U.S. custody.

Instead of reducing America's reliance on nuclear weapons and their further proliferation, we have insisted on our right (and that of others) to retain our arsenals, expand them, and therefore abrogate or derogate almost all nuclear arms control agreements negotiated during the last 50 years. We have now become a prime culprit in global nuclear proliferation. America also has abandoned the prohibition of "first use" of nuclear weapons against nonnuclear nations, and is contemplating the previously condemned deployment of weapons in space.

Protection of the environment has fallen by the wayside because of government subservience to political pressure from the oil industry and other powerful lobbying groups. The last five years have brought continued lowering of pollution standards at home and almost universal condemnation of our nation's global environmental policies.

Our government has abandoned fiscal responsibility by unprecedented favors to the rich, while neglecting America's working families. Members of Congress have increased their own pay by $30,000 per year since freezing the minimum wage at $5.15 per hour (the lowest among industrialized nations).

I am extremely concerned by a fundamentalist shift in many houses of worship and in government, as church and state have become increasingly intertwined in ways previously thought unimaginable.

As the world's only superpower, America should be seen as the unswerving champion of peace, freedom and human rights. Our country should be the focal point around which other nations can gather to combat threats to international security and to enhance the quality of our common environment. We should be in the forefront of providing human assistance to people in need.

It is time for the deep and disturbing political divisions within our country to be substantially healed, with Americans united in a common commitment to revive and nourish the historic political and moral values that we have espoused during the last 230 years.

Welcome to the 21st Century

Utopian Claptrap. I think we need more of it.

Eat, Sleep, Work, Consume, Die

By Tony Long

Story location: http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,68742,00.html

02:00 AM Nov. 10, 2005 PT

Say you live in Greenwich, Connecticut, during, oh, the early 1850s. Your

older brother left home a few years back to try his luck in the California

gold fields. Like the vast majority of those who risked everything to go

west, he came up empty. Now he's stranded, working in some dive on the San

Francisco waterfront, pulling steam beer for the other would-be millionaires

nursing their dashed dreams.

You take quill to parchment (OK, you have paper, but it's pitted with wood

pulp) and write him a letter.

The Pony Express doesn't yet exist (the first rider won't set off from St.

Joseph, Missouri, until April 1860), and telegraph won't be functional until

late 1861, so your letter will go the usual way: by sailing ship around the

Horn. Assuming it doesn't run into heavy seas or founder off Tierra del

Fuego, the vessel should arrive in San Francisco Bay about three months

after weighing anchor at Mystic. It's the cutting-edge technology of its

day.

Today, sitting at home in Greenwich, you can dispatch an e-mail to your

bartender brother out west that he'll be able to read within minutes of

mixing the day's last cosmopolitan. Or you can call him and leave a message.

Heck, if you guys use text messaging, you'll be chatting almost

instantaneously.

On balance, any of those are probably a better alternative to the clipper

ship. Hey, if I miss my brother it's kind of nice to be able to get hold of

him -- now.

But that's the point. My expectations have been raised to this ridiculous

level by technology running amok through my heretofore-bucolic existence. I

used to be a laid-back guy. Now I'm impatient. I chafe. I get irritable when

my gratification isn't instantaneous. And it isn't just me. The whole world

is bitchier these days.

I'm old enough to remember when waiting a few days for a letter to arrive

was standard operating procedure, even in the bare-knuckles business world.

I recall a time without answering machines, when you just had to keep

calling back on your rotary phone until someone picked up. (Which had the

unintended benefit of allowing you to reconsider whether the original call

was even worth making in the first place.) The world moved at a more

leisurely pace and, humanistically speaking, we were all the better for it.

Just because technology makes it possible for us to work 10 times faster

than we used to doesn't mean we should do it. The body may be able to

withstand the strain -- for a while -- but the spirit isn't meant to flail

away uselessly on the commercial gerbil wheel. The boys in corporate don't

want you to hear this because the more they can suck out of you, the lower

their costs and the higher their profit margin. And profit is god, after

all. (Genuflect here, if you must.)

But what's good for them isn't necessarily good for you, no matter how much

filthy lucre they throw your way.

Civilization took a definite nose dive when the merchant princes grew

ascendant at the expense of the artists and thinkers; when the notion of

liberté, égalité, fraternité gave way to "I've got mine; screw you" (an

attitude that existed in Voltaire's day, too, you might recall, with

unfortunate results for the blue bloods). In the Big Picture, the dead white

guys -- Rousseau, Thoreau, Mill -- cared a lot more about your well-being

than the live ones like Gates or Jobs or Ellison ever will.

But stock-market capitalism is today's coin of the realm, consumerism its

handmaiden, and technology is the great enabler. You think technology

benefits you because it gives you an easier row to hoe? Bollocks. The ease

it provides is illusory. It has trapped you, made you a slave to things you

don't even need but suddenly can't live without. So you rot in a cubicle

trying to get the money to get the stuff, when you should be out walking in

a meadow or wooing a lover or writing a song.

Utopian claptrap, you sneer. So you put nose to grindstone, your life ebbing

as you accumulate ... what?

Look around. Our collective humanity is dying a little more every day.

Technology is killing life on the street -- the public commons, if you

please. Chat rooms, text messaging, IM are all, technically, forms of

communication. But when they replace yakking over the back fence, or sitting

huggermugger at the bar or simply walking with a friend -- as they have for

an increasing number of people in "advanced" societies -- then meaningful

human contact is lost. Ease of use is small compensation.

The street suffers in other ways, too. Where you used to buy books from your

local bookseller, you now give your money (by credit card, with usurious

interest rates) to Amazon.com. Where you used to have a garage sale, you now

flog your detritus on craigslist. Almost anything you used to buy from a

butcher or druggist or florist you can now get online. Handy as hell, to be

sure, and nothing touched by human hands. But little shops lose business and

close, to be replaced, if at all, by cookie-cutter chain stores selling One

Size Fits All. The corporations have got you right where they want you.

Is this the world you want to inhabit? Really? I live near San Francisco

Bay. When I think about all this, I miss the canvas sail and the wind

whistling through the shrouds.

Tony Long is copy chief of Wired News. He is, by his own admission, a

hopeless romantic.

Here''s another sustainable energy idea

This gives a new meaning to "Amber waves of grain" doesn't it?

Grass hailed as potential source of clean energy

By Patricia ReaneyTue Sep 6,12:50 PM ET

A tall, decorative plant that can be grown in Europe and the United

States could provide a significant amount of energy without contributing

to global warming, scientists said on Tuesday.

Field trials of the grass called Miscanthus in Illinois showed it could

be very effective as an economically and environmentally sustainable

energy crop.

Professor Steve Long and his colleagues at the University of Illinois

obtained a yield of about 60 tonnes per hectare of the tall willowy

grass last year.

"If about 8 percent of the land area (of the state) was given over to

this grass, and assuming only half of those yields were obtained, we

would obtain enough dry matter to generate the total electricity used by

of the state if Illinois, which includes the city of Chicago," he told a

science conference.

Professor Mike Jones, of Trinity College in Dublin, said planting the

crop on 10 percent of the arable land in Ireland, could meet up to 30

percent of the country's electricity needs.

In the United States, scientists are looking at burning the crop in a

50-50 mix with coal to generate electricity. It would be suitable for

use in some existing power plants, although others would require

modification.

The scientists told the British Association for the Advancement of

Science conference that the attractive, perennial plant which grows

about 14 feet high and similar grasses could provide a means to

significantly offset fossil fuel emissions.

"As the plant grows it is drawing carbon dioxide out of the air. When

you burn it you put that carbon dioxide back, so the net effect on

atmospheric CO2 is zero," Long explained.

"In terms of Kyoto it would be considered carbon neutral," Long said,

referring to the 1997 protocol that demands cuts in greenhouse emissions

by 5.2 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12.

The scientists used a sterile hybrid of the plant, which comes from high

altitude areas in Japan and produces a silver, feather-like foliage, in

the trials so it would not become invasive.

"Currently, in those trials that have been carried out, there appears to

be no real problem with pests or diseases," according to Jones.

Long said biomass crops have not been taken seriously as a means for

mitigating rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

"The point we want to make is that these new plants that we have been

looking at really could make a major contribution and it doesn't require

major technological breakthroughs to do that."

Announcing some new correspondents

School is about to begin and with it Out of It gains two new foreign correspondents. Kyle Weaner will be reporting from Kyoto Japan. His blog is available at

weanermobile.blogspot.com

and should appear as a link in the sidebar here. Similarly, Eva Hathaway will be reporting from Costa Rica. Both are senior students with the Friends World Program at Long Island University. Eva's blog is available at

evalucien.blogspot.com

As always, I would like to hear from anyone interested in contributing viewpoints from other countries that are Out of It. For the reading impaired I have also started a podcast called 15 Minutes at HoshiMotors that is available at

http://www.reciprocalradio.com or through iTunes if you have version 4.9 or better. The topics are car centric but widely varied. Listen in if you like.

The following opinion appeared as a post on Dave Farber's Interesting Persons list this week. I include it because of it's resonance with Out of It sensibilities. The vision is a little dark and disturbing but I think it outlines the problems on the horizon in a concise way. I think there are an equal number of opportunities along with the downside but the transition will be difficult to say the least. It's certainly a POV that doesn't get much attention. Historically things are not as bad as they seem. If you check the following links you'll see we've been here before. The difference is we have never had the demand pressure on oil supply that China and India are exerting now. Don't expect prices to fall........ ever.

http://www.randomuseless.info/gasprice/gasprice.html

http://www.knowledgeproblem.com/archives/001388.html

----------------------------------------------------

The price of petroleum is a huge stress on the consumer. First, gasoline.

The cost to drive your car. My wife's car now takes $75 to fill. My first

car cost $73. My first Subaru cost $1,907.40 and cost $2.80 to fill.

The cost to heat your house is soaring. The cost to light your house is

soaring. The only mitigating situation is if your local electric company

was long, rather than short, in the petroleum market.

People are more indebted than ever before but their balance sheets look good

for one reason only: their houses. Once the value of their houses declines

their balance sheets go in to the crapper.

So on the one hand the consumer who supports the economy, the Kmart shopper,

the Walmart shopper, the person who spends 100% of their income, is fading

pricing pressures for gasoline and utilities.

His house price will come under pressure. Right now the inventory of new

and secondary houses is rising and the prices are abating, even coming down

a tad. The sales by units are not mitigating---they are rising---, but the

secondary signs---number of units available, price, number of days on

market, are worsening.

Oil then increases the costs of myriad other products. Or it increases

profit pressures on the manufacturing sector. In either case it creates

more pressure to find gains in productivity.

Another front is approaching:

Business/government relationships go though well known phases. Governments

are set up to represent people. People start businesses. The businesses

grow. Over the course of a couple hundred years the business input to

government surpasses that of the people (customers) and the government

begins to represent the businesses.

Bush represents big business. To the hilt. Everything he has done has been

good for business and bad for the citizen. He let Microsoft go, even after

they were convicted. There has been no meaningful anti trust prosecution

since he began.

The most outrageous mergers and consolidations have been allowed using the

excuse of economies of scale. What do economies of scale mean in

broadcasting? Well, naturally it means that there will be less programming

per listener and viewer. In other words, distribute the same content to

more people. In point of fact, there are almost no economies of scale in

business. Only in two businesses can you even make a reasonable

argument---manufacturing and distribution.

In every field companies have been merging and acquiring. Cisco, a few

years ago, acquired 75 companies in one year. What is the core growth of

companies today? We are not allowed to know. The company that bought mine,

WebMD, has had NO core growth in six years. All the growth has been from

acquisitions. Acquisitions are done for dishonest reasons. It enables you

to capitalize what would normally be expensed. So you can show profits that

you don't have. If a company bought Brazil, the company could put out a P&L

with expanded revenues for sure. But is that growth? You have Brazil. Is

that a good business to have? Was it good for Brazil? Then why should it

be good for you?

How many router companies do we need? Who cares what kind of router you

have? Who is going to pay for telecommunications services in the future

when every kid knows that telecommunications is simply a characteristic of

the network, that there is no such thing as a telecommunications service,

there is only an application that can be shared among consenting persons?

Cars used to last two years before they started to fall apart. Now they

last the better part of ten. And more. Cars have never been cheaper in

adjusted dollars.

All over the world there is a glut of goods. Commoditization is subsuming

brand. Where is there a "Pontiac man", a "Chevrolet man"? Who among us is

a "Nokia man"? We buy the best deal, we often buy with little regard for

brand. Sometimes we don't even buy. We don't buy cell phones. We get them

for free. Each time a different one.

I just bought a digital watch. I did not go into the store and ask for a

certain brand. My kids bought a camera. I am not sure they know what brand

it is.

Another kid just bought a dirt motorcycle. He did not shop for brand.

All over the world there is a race among companies to achieve productivity

gains.

What is this process called productivity gains? It is precisely a calculus

limit. It tends toward the state where everything is produced by no one.

But if everything is produced and no one has a job, then who buys?

This also increases the pricing pressure on business. Lower wages and

higher costs for heating our houses and driving our cars is a deflationary

perfect storm.

Finally, although the endgame is messy, we move from fascism (where the

government represents the people) to communism (where the cabal of

government and business are forced to produce according to their capital

investment ability (flip side: need) to produce...and to distribute to the

people according to their need (flip side: ability to absorb)).

When you employ people and you have a downturn you can fire the people. When

you employ capital you cannot. Capital intensive businesses are routinely

driven to extremes, having way too much inventory when times are bad, and

not being able to gear up when times are good. Capital intensive businesses

are like driving big ships and labor intensive ones are like driving speed

boats. Capital intensive businesses have very low marginal costs. Thus

they often sell for prices that merely meet the marginal costs but do not

share appropriately in the cost of the capital. The businesses have no

alternative. Productivity is the conversion from people intensive (labor

intensive) to capital intensive.

That is where we are going. I cannot see a way out. Man has no self

control.

Oil is merely a significant acute event in a terribly secular long term

unvirtuous cycle. The increase in oil is simply going to make it harder for

the consumer to consume as many goods.

The impact on our culture is that we will become house-bound, become more

insular, live "virtually" through our computers and TV's, make fewer bonds

with real humans, etc.

This, in fact, may be why today there is precious little protest against the

Bush administration. We are already living in a virtual TV world in which

we view these horrid events as entertainment. We no longer view our lives

as real. It is not happening to the real us. There is no real us. Making

it easier is that the soldiers who are dying volunteered. They are not

"us".

I used to pick up hitch hikers. I used to hitch hike. I am still friendly

with people who picked me up and people I picked up. There are no hitch

hikers today.

We are furtive. We are scared. We are quiet. We are hoping. I think we

all know something is very wrong. But we are not sure what or how to fix it

and so we shut up, hoping that we will be all right, hoping the term

disintermediation does not mean us.

I don't know where to stop. It all seems so clear to me, it all seems so

connected, it all seems so unstoppable.

We are nearing the end of our run. Who says so?

The bond market is at total variance with the stock market. Never has there

been such a divergence of opinion. The stock market says we are headed for

growth, for better days. The bond market says we are not headed for growth.

Almost nobody disputes that the bond market is smarter than the stock

market. Yet stock gurus are saying the bond market is in denial.

I cannot remember a time when the bond market was wrong.

The yield curve is familiar to many people. An uninverted steep yield curve

(high long term rates, low short term rates) is a good sign for the stock

market and asset owners in the intermediate term. A flat or inverted yield

curve is a bad sign for the stock market and asset owners. We have a very

flat yield curve now. The people who have real money are selling that

money, long term, for not a lot of interest. Why? Because they are not

fearing inflation. What is inflation? That is simply your house

appreciating! The big money boys are betting that it will not appreciate.

The US government is taking advantage of the yield curve by refinancing its

debt into 30 year instruments, taking advantage of people's willingness to

take a modest return for 30 years, come what may.

In the spring of 2000 I had a long talk with the CEO of a major stock

brokerage. I asked him what he was doing with his own considerable money.

He said he was buying municipal bonds. Five years later the Nasdaq is less

than half of where it was and the Dow is 90% of where it was. He is still

in bonds.Sorry for the diatribe. Feel free to edit. I am a bad organizer.

Robert Lee

2006 Civic - Here's what Europe Gets

If you have checked the latest NEWS page here at Hoshimotors.net you may have been underwhelmed to see the evolutionary 2006 Civic. No hatchbacks or wagons available thanks.

Today the 2006 Euro Civic 5 door hatchback arrived in my email from 4Car in Britain. You can check the article at

http://www.channel4.com/4car/feature/preview/2005/honda-civic/civic.html

Most manufacturers seem convinced that the US is interested only in SUVs or sedans with trunks so we get some of the most boring choices in the world. If you want this kind of space here you must buy a CRV or the massive Element. Expect about 30 mpg under the best of conditions.

This car will be available with Honda's own 2.2 liter diesel engine which produces 255 ft.lbs of torque and 0-60 times near 8 seconds while delivering the 50 mpg fuel economy that US hybrid owners expect but don't get.

This is a big car too, certainly a capable family hauler with an innovative rear seat that folds down to create a massive.load area. Rumors persist that the Honda Fit will appear in the US lineup. We can only hope.

From our Indian Correspondent

Coming back from vacation this week I found these two interesting items in my mailbox. Both neatly and articulately identify the challenges for the United States in the next few years. I noticed that neither are figuring in the current political debate. Seems to me we should start getting down to business.

First an excerpt sent by our Indian correspondent.

July 12, 2005

A Passage From India

By SUKETU MEHTA

ACCORDING to a confidential memorandum, I.B.M. is cutting 13,000 jobs in the United States and in Europe and creating 14,000 jobs in India. From 2000 to 2015, an estimated three million American jobs will have been outsourced; one in 10 technology jobs will leave these shores by the end of this year. Stories like these have aroused a primal fear in the Western public: that they might soon need to line up outside the Indian Embassy for work visas and their children will have to learn Hindi.

Just as my parents had to line up outside the American consulate in Bombay, and my sisters and I had to learn English. My father came to America in 1977 not for its political freedoms or its way of life, but for the hope of a better economic future for his children. My grandfathers on both sides left rural Gujarat in northwestern India to find work: one to Calcutta, which was even more remote in those days than New York is from Bombay now; and the other to Nairobi. Mobility, we have always known, is survival. Now I face the possibility that my children, when they grow up, will find their jobs outsourced to the very country their grandfather left to pursue economic opportunity.

The outsourcing debate seems to have mutated into a contest between the country of my birth and the country of my nationality. Of course I feel a loyalty to America: it gave my parents a new life and my sons were born here. I have a vested interest in seeing America prosper. But I am here because the country of my ancestors didn't understand the changing world; it couldn't change its technology and its philosophy and its notions of social mobility fast enough to fight off the European colonists, who won not so much with the might of advanced weaponry as with the clear logical philosophy of the Enlightenment. Their systems of thinking conquered our own. So, since independence, Indians have had to learn; we have had to slog for long hours in the classroom while the children of other countries went out to play.

When I moved to Queens, in New York City, at the age of 14, I found myself, for the first time in my life, considered good at math. In Bombay, math was my worst subject, and I regularly found my place near the bottom of the class rankings in that rigorous subject. But in my American school, so low were their standards that I was - to my parents' disbelief - near the top of the class. It was the same in English and, unexpectedly, in American history, for my school in Bombay included a detailed study of the American Revolution. My American school curriculum had, of course, almost nothing on the subcontinent's freedom struggle. I was mercilessly bullied during the 1979-80 hostage crisis, because my classmates couldn't tell the difference between Iran and India. If I were now to move with my family to India, my children - who go to one of the best private schools in New York - would have to take remedial math and science courses to get into a good school in Bombay.

Of course, India's no wonderland. It might soon have the world's biggest middle class, but it also has the world's largest underclass. A quarter of its one billion people live below the poverty line, 40 percent are illiterate, and the child malnutrition rate exceeds that of sub-Saharan Africa. There's a huge difference between the backwater state of Bihar and the boomtown of Bangalore. Those Indians who went to the United States, though, have done remarkably well: Indians make up one of the richest ethnic groups in this country. During the technology boom of the late 1990's, Indians were responsible for 10 percent of all the start-ups in Silicon Valley. And in this year's national spelling bee, the top four contestants were of South Asian origin.

There is a perverse hypocrisy about the whole jobs debate, especially in Europe. The colonial powers invaded countries like India and China, pillaged them of their treasures and commodities and made sure their industries weren't allowed to develop, so they would stay impoverished and unable to compete. Then the imperialists complained when the destitute people of the former colonies came to their shores to clean their toilets and dig their sewers; they complained when later generations came to earn high wages as doctors and engineers; and now they're complaining when their jobs are being lost to children of the empire who are working harder than they are. My grandfather was once confronted by an elderly Englishman in a London park who asked, "Why are you here?" My grandfather responded, "We are the creditors." We are here because you were there.

The rich countries can't have it both ways. They can't provide huge subsidies for their agricultural conglomerates and complain when Indians who can't make a living on their farms then go to the cities and study computers and take away their jobs. Why are Indians willing to write code for a tenth of what Americans make for the same work? It's not by choice; it's because they're still struggling to stand on their feet after 200 years of colonial rule. The day will soon come when Indian companies will find that it's cheaper to hire computer programmers in Sri Lanka, and then it's there that the Indian jobs will go.

Of course, it's heart-wrenching to see American programmers - many of whom are of Indian origin - lose their jobs and have to worry about how they'll pay the mortgage. But they are ill served by politicians who promise to bring their jobs back by the facile tactic of banning them from leaving. This strategy will ensure only that our schools stay terrible; it'll be an entire country run like the dairy industry, feasible only because of price controls and subsidies.

But we have a resource of incalculable worth right here to help us compete: the immigrants who've been given a new life in America. There are many more Indians in the United States than there are Americans in India. Indian-Americans will help America understand India, trade with it to our mutual benefit. Just as Arab-Americans can help us fight Al Qaeda, Indian-Americans can help us deal with the emerging economic superpower that is India. This is the return of the gift of citizenship.

And just in case, I'm making sure my children learn Hindi.

Suketu Mehta is author of "Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found."

That article made me rethink my position in the world. This one, from the New York Times, made me realize how far behind the reality curve we really are. Time to start thinking about the urban design problem we have been creating for the past 100 years rather than where the next barrel of oil is going to come from.

July 12, 2005

When oil prices spiked in the early 1980's after the Iranian revolution, Jared Nedzel gave up his 1978 Pontiac Trans Am, an emblematic American muscle car, for a smaller, less extravagant Toyota Corolla. He was on his way to Cornell University to study civil engineering and he needed a more economical car.

Today, Mr. Nedzel, a 44-year-old software developer who lives near Boston, owns a Toyota 4Runner, a sport utility vehicle he bought two years ago. It gets about 17.5 miles per gallon, as much as the Trans Am did, and he uses it for his 45-minute commute to work and for driving near the beaches of Martha's Vineyard to get to his favorite fishing spots.

Gasoline prices have spiked again, to more than $2.25 for a gallon of regular in Boston last week, just above the national average, according to the AAA. But energy costs do not weigh on Mr. Nedzel's mind. "Just another gas crisis," he said, expressing an opinion held by many others. "I'm not hyperventilating about it."

For Americans, oil shocks no longer seem so shocking.

The Arab oil embargo of 1973 and the Iranian revolution in 1978-79 exposed America's vulnerability to powerful forces outside its control, forces that sent fuel prices to record levels, prompted anger over gas lines and led to bookend recessions that defined a decade of economic turmoil.

By 1980, the energy crisis and the inflation it spawned had left Americans in a vindictive mood, contributing to the re-election defeat of President Jimmy Carter, who had promised to wage the "moral equivalent of war" against dependence on foreign oil.

But the latest escalation in oil prices - to as much as $60 today from less than $30 a barrel a little more than two years ago - has produced a much more limited response. Energy legislation that President Bush is pressing Congress to pass this summer would bring little relief. And while Americans say in polls that they are deeply disturbed by high gasoline prices and looking for someone to blame, most people continue to drive just as avidly as before; purchases of gas-guzzling sport utility vehicles have slowed but there has been no significant shift to more fuel-efficient cars.

Furthermore, gasoline consumption has continued to rise, up 1 percent in May compared with the same month last year.

James R. Schlesinger, whom President Carter selected as the first energy secretary, in 1977, said in a recent interview that the country's basic energy approach can best be summed up this way: "We have only two modes - complacency and panic."

The earlier oil shocks produced remarkable changes, including the rise of the Japanese auto industry as Americans turned to smaller, more efficient cars out of choice and necessity. With carrots and sticks, the United States managed to cut, temporarily, energy use per person and to scale back the share of oil in its overall energy mix.

The federal government established a strategic petroleum reserve as an insurance policy against global supply disruptions, set a national 55 m.p.h. speed limit and spent billions - much of it wasted, however, on alternatives like shale oil that proved far too costly, particularly after crude oil prices fell when economic recession tempered the demand for energy.

But this time around, the government has done almost nothing to reduce the nation's vulnerability to a sudden interruption in oil supplies. Even the advocates for the long-stalled energy bill that has finally passed both houses of Congress - though in radically different forms - acknowledge that neither version of the measure will be effective.

This month, the House and the Senate will attempt to hammer out their differences and produce the first piece of energy legislation in four years, one that President Bush hopes to sign as early as August.

Crude oil imports have doubled over the last three decades, and now account for nearly two-thirds of the oil Americans burn. Before the 1973 oil embargo, imports accounted for only about one-third of America's energy consumption. In the same three-decade period, oil demand in the United States has grown by 18 percent while domestic production has continued on a slow and probably irrevocable path of decline.

The problem is not the latest price rise, which, adjusted for inflation, is still well below the peak in early 1981, when oil cost the equivalent of $86 a barrel in today's dollars; gasoline, released from price controls, briefly sold back then for the equivalent of $3 a gallon. And it is not just imports; even if the country produced enough oil to meet its domestic needs, in a global economy a price shock would still be felt in the United States.

The fundamental problem, experts say, is that Americans depend almost exclusively on relatively large and heavy private vehicles, virtually all of them running on gasoline, for crucial daily tasks like getting to work and taking their children to school. "Americans live in a car-driven culture where they want to do as much as possible as fast as possible," said Amy Myers Jaffe, the associate director of Rice University's energy program in Houston. "I can drop off my dry cleaning, pick up my prescription drugs, do my banking and buy my lunch, all without leaving my car."

Because of this high dependence on private cars, the United States continues to use oil considerably less efficiently than any other rich industrial country. Yet most of the proposed policy remedies are meant only to subsidize the production of oil, not use less of it. Many of the rest are focused on electricity, little of it produced by oil.

Despite the lessons of the past, the United States remains particularly vulnerable to a decision by a crucial supplier - for example, the anti-American government of Venezuela -to cut its oil exports, as Saudi Arabia and other Arab nations did in 1973.

Even more critically, Americans can no longer count on abundant supplies of cheap fossil fuels, because developing nations like China and India are emerging as major competitors for resources. This is occurring just as global oil production may be hitting a plateau, a growing number of specialists say. Worldwide output, now about 80 million barrels a day, may fall short of the 100 million barrels a day that energy officials are counting on reaching within the next decade, they say.

Oil prices fell after previous shocks because recessions reduced demand. This time around, galloping consumption has left many authorities believing that the world may face a long period of high prices and tight supplies.

So who is responsible for the current situation? The evidence shows that consumers, oil suppliers, lobbyists and politicians all have played roles.

"A message of the late 1970's is we must prepare for the day of reckoning, the transition away from oil," said Mr. Schlesinger, who also served under President Richard M. Nixon as defense secretary and director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

But it did not happen then, he said, and "I doubt we're going to do it now."

THE CONSUMERS

What Has 4 Wheels And Guzzles Gasoline?

The failure to control consumption is most glaring in the country's transportation sector, which now represents two-thirds of all oil demand in the United States and is solely accountable for the growth of the nation's oil thirst over the last three decades. Each day, America's fleet of more than 200 million cars guzzles 11 percent of the world's daily oil output. Gasoline consumption has risen 35 percent since 1973, compared with a 19 percent increase in overall crude oil consumption.

The growth comes mainly from light trucks, including sport utility vehicles, which account for almost half of all cars sold in the United States. For many consumers, the advantages of an S.U.V. - size, power and an increased sense of security from driving a taller vehicle - largely overshadow one of their main drawbacks, higher fuel consumption.

"Don't blame S.U.V. drivers," said Mr. Nedzel, the 4Runner owner. "The marketplace has changed since the 1970's, and carmakers have adapted and people's habits have changed. For me, there isn't a hybrid that would get me where I want to go."

And while he says he would be willing to tolerate higher gasoline taxes, Mr. Nedzel opposes more stringent fuel efficiency standards. "That's like having an obesity problem," he said, "and being told you need a smaller shirt."

THE INDUSTRY

Supply and Demand Isn't What It Used to Be

On a warm, sunny day in February, David J. O'Reilly, one of America's top oil executives, stood before 200 energy leaders, analysts and bankers in Houston to lay out what he considered the world's new energy quandary.

"The most visible element of this new equation," said Mr. O'Reilly, the chief executive of Chevron, "is that relative to demand, oil is no longer in plentiful supply. The time when we could count on cheap oil and even cheaper natural gas is clearly ending."

That's a challenge the oil industry is struggling to meet. Major oil companies are fast running out of places to invest for new supplies of oil since most of the world's reserves are in countries that are either wary of foreign investors or, because of war or sanctions, shut off to American oil concerns.

At the same time, the oil industry is waking up to the growing challenge of Asian rivals who are seeking to secure access to their own reserves around the world. Mr. O'Reilly experienced this aggressive new stance first-hand recently: the China National Offshore Oil Corporation is seeking to buy Unocal with an unsolicited $18.5 billion bid and thwart his own offer.

"The main question is access to resources," said Daniel Yergin, chairman of Cambridge Energy Research Associates, an industry consulting firm. "It's the dominant issue that hangs over the entire industry, whether you're talking about Russia, the Middle East, or off the shores of the United States."

In contrast to previous oil shocks, which were caused by unexpected limitations on supply, today's sharp rise in oil prices is almost entirely driven by increased demand, not just from the United States but also from China, India and elsewhere.

According to Mr. O'Reilly, it took 125 years to consume a trillion barrels of oil; the next trillion is likely to be consumed in just 35 years.

To many in the industry, the only realistic alternative is to expand the search for oil, even to areas that are currently closed to drilling, including the ocean off the coasts of California and Florida and the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Preserve in Alaska.

"We're a spoiled nation," said James T. Hackett, the president and chief executive of the Anadarko Petroleum Corporation and a vocal advocate for increased domestic production. "Because this is such an important national issue, you shouldn't allow yourself to get into a crisis before acting."

But many outside the industry say that intensive exploration of the United States over more than a century has found almost all the oil there is to find, so reversing the decline in domestic production through new discoveries will prove impossible. There is also some doubt about whether oil producers can increase world output enough to keep up with the expected growth in demand.

"Oil supplies will diminish, that's geology," said Kenneth S. Deffeyes, a professor emeritus of geology at Princeton University and the author of "Beyond Oil: The View From Hubbert's Peak" (Hill & Wang, 2005). Professor Deffeyes predicts that global oil production will reach its peak around Thanksgiving Day and decline after that. "The negligence comes from doing nothing about alternative fuels or conservation measures over the past 20 years. Now it is too late. The oil is gone."

After previous disruptions, as when the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries took control of their oil resources from foreign oil companies like Chevron in the late 1960's and early 1970's, those companies managed to rebound when high oil prices let them develop high-cost regions like the north slope of Alaska and the North Sea. But the price collapse of the 1980's led to nearly two decades of oil oversupply that discouraged additional investments.

In recent years, oil executives say they have made discoveries in Angola, Nigeria, Libya, Kazakhstan and Algeria, to name a few countries. The industry hope is that increased exploration and more intensive efforts at existing oil fields will enable producers to expand output enough to keep up demand, preventing prices from soaring and sustaining economic growth around the world.

"There's still plenty of room to play here," Mr. O'Reilly said in an interview in Houston after his speech. "In the last decade, there's been more opening than closing. The pendulum swings in this business."

THE POLITICS

Ambitious Proposals Stuck in the Beltway

When Bill Clinton was campaigning in New Hampshire in early 1992, the cost of oil was very much on voters' minds. The economy was weak and the third energy scare of the late 20th century - Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait in 1990, which shut down nearly 3.4 million barrels a day of crude oil output for nearly a year - was still a powerful memory. The last of the Kuwaiti wells set aflame by the retreating Iraqis had been put out only a few months earlier.

But by the time President Clinton took office in January 1993, the price of crude oil was much lower and falling.

Passing an energy bill was not on the administration's agenda, but putting one into practice was. Congress had approved an ambitious law in 1992 intended to promote alternatives to gasoline. The goal was for 10 percent of the vehicle fleet to be capable of running on something else by 2000; by 2010 it was supposed to be 30 percent.

Today, the number is still under 1 percent.

"We did the best we could under the circumstances," Mr. Clinton said in a recent interview, "but there was minimal interest, the economy was growing like crazy, there was no inflation and oil was cheap."

By 1994, the price of crude oil bottomed out at less than $16 a barrel, making it impossible to save money by switching to something else. Low gasoline prices, combined with a rapidly improving economy, brought an explosion in the number of vehicles, to nearly one per driver. Many more of the new vehicles were S.U.V.'s, pickup trucks and minivans, all gulping fuel.

As part of his deficit-reduction program, Mr. Clinton managed to push through an increase in the federal excise tax on gasoline to 18.4 cents a gallon, from 14.1 cents. But he had to abandon a much more ambitious proposal to raise energy taxes across the board as part of an effort to limit global warming and control pollution from fossil fuels.

"I hadn't run on it, and hadn't made any kind of foundation to do anything on it," Mr. Clinton said. "It was sprung on Congress," he added, sounding regretful.

Despite the retreat on energy taxes, the vote on the budget bill was still so close in the Senate that Vice President Al Gore had to cast the deciding vote. There was never any chance of achieving anything close to the taxes levied in Europe, where consumers pay up to $5 a gallon for gasoline, mostly due to taxes.

"In Europe, people are less dependent on cars, they use smaller cars, and a gas tax wasn't as controversial as it would be here," Mr. Clinton said.

The atmosphere for cutting oil consumption might be better now, he said, than it was during his tenure. "There is a lot greater awareness, even though we're moving away from 9/11, of our vulnerability," he said. "We've got to get a vehicle fleet that doesn't depend on oil as much."

But given political constraints, which block any serious effort at fuel efficiency or raising energy taxes, the government is stymied, according to Philip R. Sharp, a veteran of Washington's energy wars and an Indiana Democrat who served in Congress from 1975 to 1995.

"We cannot in any rapid fashion or cheap fashion have a radical impact," said Mr. Sharp, who drafted large parts of the 1992 energy bill that sought to wean the nation away from gasoline. "It is very hard for public policy makers to grasp how large this marketplace is. It's gigantic."

Reversing into the future

I got a chance to drive Honda's new Ridgeline pickup a few weeks ago. It takes a while for the point of this vehicle to emerge. With fuel economy of 16 city/21 highway it certainly won't be your first choice for people hauling as gas prices rise. While it will hold a lot of stuff it is not as convenient as a minivan for most families. Four wheel drive is a nice feature but already available with more passenger space in the Pilot. So what is the market for this vehicle?

The secret from my point of view is the towing capacity. This is a vehicle made for families already locked into some kind of energy intensive lifestyle. With 5000 lbs. of towing capacity it's just the ticket for your average sized boat, camper, or horse trailer; lifestyle items you won't be hauling with an Odyssey. While the fuel economy is retched it looks pretty good compared to any V8 truck made in America. Which brings us to the second point. The current financial troubles at GM and Ford stem in large part from Japanese inroads into the truck market. This is a model designed to skim even more of the profitable cream from the only money making market left to domestic manufacturers. California is already full of people who won't buy an American vehicle under any circumstances. Maybe Indiana is too?

A mobile nation apart

This fine article by Denise McCluggage appeared in the April 4, 2005 edition of Autoweek. McCluggage has bona fides as a rally driver and formula car racer in the era when I came of driving age. She even dated Steve McQueen. I found a resonance in her words with my own feelings about the state of things automotive here in the States. Maybe the only good thing about $4+ gasoline is that we can quickly get back in sync with the rest of the automotive world. I hope she won't mind my reprinting it here.

FINE CARS OUT OF OUR GRASP

Denise McCluggage

The Geneva Motor Show deals any American in attendance a jolting sense of deprivation. It's as if a birthright to privilege has been denied. Stunned to an open mouthed gape, this American roamed the aisles with a growing awareness: We are second class citizens in the worldly scheme of matters automotive.

I've suspected this. I've seen write ups of knockout cars that we wouldn't get. And engine choices not meant for us. But the three dimensional reality at a show I've missed for a number of years was overwhelming.

The Europeans' taste in cars has generally echoed mine, though theirs may be shaped by manipulative taxation and limited space. I've always preferred small, agile cars to large, adamant ones with floaty rides. In the '50s I disdained Detroit Iron. I considered adroit handling on curving roads and a talent for stopping to be desirable traits, and thus the muscle cars of the '60s held only peripheral interest. (Though I confess to some favorable feelings toward a Barracuda.)

Even today the thrill of straight line speed is ephemeral for me. It must be backed with curly road capabilities. Thus I like the latest Mustang and Corvette, but not the early ones.

Back then, and in succeeding years, I looked to MG, Jaguar, Porsche, Alfa, Lancia, Ferrari. Hey, easy to love. But I also had a scattering of Fiats, which were more testing of enduring affection. There was a scattering of Minis and a Land Rover. A Brat and Colt Vista or so on the way to my Sidekick. Utility rules.

But the taut bodied hatchbacks and sportwagons common to Europe's teeming streets and spidery roadways strike a chord with me. At Geneva, a gathering of the most innovative and charming of that ilk under one roof with practiced lighting was bound to stir deep feelings. And so many of them not put on our plate.

And so many engines forbidden to us as well. Mostly diesels. Common wisdom: Americans don't buy hatchbacks or wagons and Americans don't buy diesels. At least not in passenger cars.

That's true enough, but with reason enough; thanks to the oil companiew, the government and the carcompaniew. First, we have dirtier diesel fuel than Europe, though 2006 is supposed to finally see the removal of sulfur. Diesel fuel here is more expensive vis-a-vis gasoline. That's because diesel gets no tax break here; it does in Europe. And California and the states following its lead have ever stricter emissions requirements that are narrowing faster than the rapidly improving diesel engine technology can keep pace.

Cleaner, quieter diesels are tumbling all over themselves in Europe. The inline six common rail direct injection engine that Mercedes Benz used in its 2004 E Class reintroducing diesel to the States has already been superseded by a new V6 CDI to be seen here in 2006 in the new M Class SUV.

Jaguar banners at Geneva bragged of a new diesel. BMW has a dandy one. Not for us. The companies fear that even the improved diesels will not meet the stringent Bin 2 requirements California has ordained. So they leave their diesels at home. Never mind diesels get better mileage than gas/electric hybrids without necessitating the frequent braking and careful acceleration hybrids require to realize their promise of economy.

Even Cadillac will have an optional diesel engine (not meant for us) in its charming BLS that debuted at Geneva (not meant for us).

I suspect carmakers don't want Americans to want diesels. They have a diesel hungry world market already. Any demand from us could complicate supply.

It's a matter of let 'em drink gas.

Molly Ivins reports on Boulder

Molly Ivins reports to the world from CU's own Conference on World Affairs. Here is how it begins.

Freshly returned from a week of intellectual sparring at the Conference on World Affairs, the annual gabfest in Boulder (the late jazz critic Leonard Feather called it "the leisure of the theory class"), I find making connections between headlines mere child's play.

Intrigued? Well you can read the rest here. Very rewarding.

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0413-32.htm

Price Pressures

A day or so ago I heard an economist on NPR state that gasoline would have to rise to about $5 a gallon to consume the same amount of disposable income it did in 1983. This was coupled with the information that analysts expected the spot price of oil (now at a nominal all time high of circa $55 a barrel) to rise above $100 a barrel before the end of the year. How will we cope? Our German correspondent reports from the land where $5 a gallon doesn't look so bad.

A friend of ours who lives in California wrote to me today to ask about the price of gasoline in Germany. Since this is a subject of universal interest, I thought I'd pass it on to all of you. Read it and weep!

Much talk here about gasoline prices. Yesterday I gassed up my car in a poor part of LA at $2.599. Today I filled up Joan's car in a more prosperous area at $2.449. Everyone is afraid of prices topping $3. How much do you pay currently? (dollars per gallon, please; don't expect me to do the hard work). Are prices uniform throughout Germany, or do poor people there also have the privilege of paying more?

Now ... on to the actual prices of gasoline over here. I drove down to the place in Austria where we fill up, and checked the prices there. Back in Germany, I checked the prices at a station in the town (Kiefersfelden) between us and the border. I couldn't check the prices in Oberaudorf because they are ripping out the pumps at the one remaining gas station. I converted the prices from ¤/liter to $/gallon using today's conversion rate of 1.2874 $/¤. Here they are for both Austria and Germany:

Name Octane Austria Germany

==========================================

Regular 91 4.820 $/gal 5.941 $/gal

Super 95 4.898 $/gal 6.038 $/gal

Super+ 98 5.210 $/gal 6.136 $/gal

I hope this helps and makes you feel better. Both the Germans and the Austrians would be overjoyed to be able to buy gasoline at 3 $/gal!

The Big Thaw

Our German Correspondent reports:

As I've said often, of late; it's been a long winter ... longer than necessary ... and the peasants have been getting restless. Walking or driving into town, I've been especially careful not to offend for I knew not what might trigger an unpleasantness. But now, I am overjoyed to be able to report:

Spring is Come to the Inn River Valley ... i.e., the Inntal!

The temperature has risen, the breezes are warming and no longer have the knife-edge discomfort to them, and the sun is shining a lot more than it has in the past four months. You can see calm and patience in the faces of the locals again, and I think I can go back to snarling at their rotten children (which they, of course, deserve and have earned) without risking bodily damage.

Several days ago, I made the 45 minute walk up to the Hocheck ... a Gasthaus perched on the mountainside at the top of Oberaudorf's ski area. M. was having her, possibly, last day of skiing for the season, and we wanted to meet for a bite of lunch. I'd been reluctant to make this walk before, because the steep road is always in shadow and had been covered with slick ice. But on this walk, the road was, again, ice and snow free! There were, of course, piles of snow on both sides, but it was melting furiously, and rivulets of water were rushing down the self-made ditches at the side. Several times, I stopped to pack snow into these waterways, temporarily blocking the flow, and then observe how and how fast the water ate through my dams; just as I did as a boy. Such retreats into childhood are always good things to do.

It was nice in the Hocheck. All the skiers were sitting outside with their beers and lunches, and I had the inside to myself. (I chose to stay inside so I could work on something without being blinded by the sun on the white paper.) M. came in, reported a wonderful day, I had some Gulasch, M. a piece of cheesecake, and then we left; she to ski for another 40 minutes or so, and I to meet her at the car at the bottom of the mountain. As I left the Hocheck, there were some notable activities to observe. There were chickens happily clucking and scratching around in the finally uncovered dirt. The ducks were haughtily strutting about in the grass, carefully avoiding the few snow piles that remained. The big, black Dog was snoozing in the sun at the far end of the porch, and the fat, orange Cat was sleeping on the hood of the farmer's car. At least, I thought she was sleeping. As I drew nearer, I heard that she was purring ... but no ... nor really purring ... but ... humming! Humming? Couldn't be. Cats don't hum. But this one was ... wait ... no ... I couldn't believe my ears! This cat was actually singing ... very softly, true ... but definitely singing, there in the warm sun. Since her eyes were closed, I risked getting closer ... very quietly, now ... don't make a sound ... and then ... and then, I was truly astounded! Flabbergasted and astounded! She was singing a song that I knew! And in English, it was. The music was by Johann Pachelbel, and the words by Kliban:

"Love to eat them mousies,

Mousies what I love to eat.

Bite they little heads off.

Nibble on they tiny, tiny feet!"

I've have not been so surprised and astounded since that afternoon my high-school girlfriend ... no ... never mind that. Anyway, that was our glorious start of spring, here in the Bavarian mountains. Some of the story is true.

Winning one for the home team

Last Wednesday was the final game in Ceal Barry's 22 year run as the Women's Basketball Coach at Colorado. Credit Ceal with seeing the big picture. Her honesty always made recruiting her most difficult task. Not one to throw around promises of playing time she offered only an education and the chance to be part of the team. Those looking for stardom often ran into frustration or went elsewhere in the first place. She candidly admitted that she felt guilty for earning so much money for this year's poor performance. The program she had built from scratch to national prominence needed new guidance and now was a good time to go. So she was retiring for the good of the program. Case closed.

I have had season tickets to these games since my daughter was 9 years old (she is now 21) and have had years of enjoyment from watching Ceal's teams. This year has been a painful one to watch but I have seen the program rebound a couple of times from similar low points. Still, I understood that Ceal was acknowledging how the game had changed during her tenure and knew what she could do to help the program stay at the high level she had attained. It was a decision that required personal sacrifice along with the characteristic integrity she brought to everything she did.

This year they have put a row of folding chairs on the sideline in front of our 4th row seats. I've often seen Betsy Hoffman , the university president, sitting there near the end of the press table. This night was no exception. She is a regular fan and was cheering the home victory, a rarity this season. When she announced her resignation on Monday I couldn't help wondering if Ceal's decision hadn't helped her make up her mind. I've not been happy with a lot of what Betsy has done but in resigning she seems to have seen the big picture and seized the moment in a way that best serves greater good of University. The more I think about it the more impressed I am with the strategic effectiveness of this seeming surrender.

Outsiders may be tempted to see Betsy's resignation as a cave in to the pressures of the football scandal with the final straw being Ward Churchill's notoriety but I don't see it that way. In an interview with the Colorado Daily she states " I think the perfect storm is a good analogy, and in fact, just the funding issue itself was a perfect storm. The combination of TABOR, Amendment 23 and a major downturn in the economy followed by low population growth and practically zero inflation - that in and of itself was the perfect storm."

Exactly. And by taking the focus off her personal performance to champion these difficult budget issues in the legislature (whose session ends before her June 30th departure date) everything else must be seen as the sideshows they are.

Governor Owens must put aside his adventurous and inappropriate assault on the tenure system at CU to focus on the needed and painful resolution of the problems caused by TABOR and Amendment 23. He must do so without the Republican majority he has enjoyed for most of his tenure.

The Regents must concentrate on finding a suitable replacement for Hoffman, a process that will put them firmly in someone else's spotlight and curtail their pot stirring role in the Churchill controversy, which after all is not a controversy at all among actual faculty members.

By removing these pointless distractions, Betsy has freed (if not forced) everyone involved to pay attention to the real problem and in so doing has served the University and the state with integrity and personal sacrifice.

Our correspondent in Germany

Those who are "Out of It" often choose to remain in contact with the outside world by corresponding by letter. Nothing satisfies like another set of eyes. Our correspondent in Germany is a mildly disaffected Boulder resident who now spends a good part of the year in Deutschland. Here is his report. We actively solicit yours.

It's Sunday, and around noon I drove down into Austria to tank up. Gasoline is much cheaper there; they don't have the taxes that Germany does. Just as I got back home, it started to snow, and fifteen minutes later, it was blizzarding. It's now about 18:00, and it's been snowing heavily ever since. I can tell that the Autobahn (one kilometer east of us) from Austria up to Munich is choked to a standstill with cars because since about 13:00, there has been a steady stream of cars going by our place. People leave the Autobahn, you see, to take advantage of the empty side roads - thereby filling them up completely so nothing moves there either. And so ... this long line of cars has been creeping by our front window for four hours now ... sometimes coming to a total standstill for a few minutes. A half hour ago, a huge tour bus came by, and ignored the sign (right by us) that says "This is the last place to turn around before the small gate that's ahead!" This gate, built in 1492, is in the old town wall, and really is small ... one lane, and room for one car or a tractor or a cow and a pig and a goat to get through. One the one hand, I hoped the bus couldn't get through the gate ... it would have taught the driver a lesson! But I really hoped it could pass through because of the poor, exasperated people who were behind him. The traffic stopped dead shortly after he went by, but then it started up again ... barely. Maybe they dismantled the bus.

This is a regular phenomenon on winter Sundays. All the people from Munich head south, Friday evenings, into the mountains for skiing, and then try to drive home after the lifts close. It's always a mess like this, the Autobahn is always constipated, the cars always try to be sneaky and take the road through Oberaudorf, and they always get into messes like today's. I don't know why they do it nor how they stand it. Maybe they play the board-games especially designed for traffic jams on the Autobahn. (Such games really exist! I'm not making this up!) Can life in Munich be so terrible that it's worth enduring this madness?

It is Karneval time in Deutschland, and the whole country is going wild with parties and parades and celebrations. Some cities really go all out; Cologne, for example. They have a big parade, people are dressed in costumes and are dancing in the streets, people on floats are throwing caramels to the onlookers, there are bands, and the pickpockets are busy. Karneval is also a time when they pull out all the political-satire stops, and some of the floats are really wicked. It's not only the local and national politicians who get nailed. Everyone is fair game. I was watching a bit of the proceedings in Cologne on TV this afternoon, and here came a float with a huge form of G.W. Bush made of paper-maché. (Apologies in advance if I misspelled that.) He was holding a large cross that was turned 90° so the long leg, now horizontal, pointed away from him, and the two short arms were now vertical. It looked much like a firearm in this position, and so it was ... a belt of machine-gun cartridges was feeding into the side of it, spent shells littered the floor of the float, and emblazoned along the long, horizontal leg (i.e., barrel) were the words God Bless America. The cheering increased noticeably as it went by. Such is the low esteem in which the man is held in this country! Small wonder that, when he visits Germany in a couple of weeks, he will met and hosted in Mainz; a small and rather out of the way place. Anyone else would be hosted in Berlin, the capitol, but the German government wants to shield him from the massive anti-Bush demonstrations that would greet him there.

Hand me that torch...... I can't read in this light.

One odd feeling I have had lately is that the "fundamental freedoms" I

felt I shared with all Americans have somehow flown into some eddy out

of the mainstream. Most of the time I can brush this aside as a sort of

paranoid delusion but then a story like this appears in USA Today and

all my anxiety comes flowing back.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2005-01-30-students-press_x.htm

U.S. students say press freedoms go too far

I thought that the argument over First Amendment Speech was settled for

good and all but this week a new flare up occured around Ward Churchill,

a tenured University of Colorado professor and his article "Some People

Push Back" an opinion piece concerning America's foriegn policy and the

events of September 11, 2001.

As an Ethnic Studies professor at CU Mr. Churchill has long favored the

dramatic gesture and prefers forms of speech that are designed to get

under the skin of those he seeks to criticize. In short, he specializes

in pushing people's buttons. This is not illegal and, though it may be

annoying to many, it is his constitutional right. He is not after all

running for office. In fact being annoying is his reason for being.

Political Incorrectness.

In other times we would be free to ignore him or criticize the

effectiveness of his method as a learning tool but now a number of

people want him to surrender his job for the crime of having something

unpopular to say. This of course will serve to draw more attention to

Churchill's opinions no matter what you think of them. Even the weak but

sensational caricature of his argument that has appeared in the press

has generated a lot of debate. Maybe that's what he was after all along.

Those pesky Liberal Arts! What to do! (said while throwing hands in

the air)

Give the people what they want

The last week or so I have been playing with a new program that records

programs streamed on the internet to MP3 files. The great thing about it

is that I can time shift some programs that I would otherwise miss, kind

of like a TiVo for the radio (as long as your radio streams to the

internet).

One program I really enjoy is The Majority Report on Air America Radio

with Janeane Garofalo and Sam Seder. Here in Boulder only 2 of the 3

hours are broadcast between 11pm and 1am. When I make it that far I

usually fall asleep after 15 minutes OR end up staying up WAY too late.

Now I can put the show on my MP3 player and listen at my leisure. I have

been recording it from the Air America website so I get all three hours

too!

I don't like most of the Air America programming (avoid Randy

"RunYouOver" Rhodes at all costs) but Majority Report is special. Here

are some smart folks that can be funny while talking seriously and in

some depth about important issues. The other night they had a guest

talking about instant runoff voting and other modern developments.

Turned out it was Krist Novoselik, bass player from Nirvana.

Now like he said, people may criticize him for capitalizing on his

musical fame but if that were his goal he would have picked a sexier

issue than voting reform. Here is a non partisan issue ( Supported by

both John McCain and Howard Dean) that streamlines the voting process by

combining the functions of primary and general elections. I'll be

talking about it more in posts to come but in the meantime the

interested can consult these two websites.

http://fairvote.org/

http://www.fixour.us/

Well, I was feeling pretty hopeful after finding someone who seemed to

share my enthusiasm for getting more people involved in government on a

meaningful level. Unlike me, Novoselik is actually out there writing

books and trying to educate people. And people in both parties are

interested. The same day, Christine Todd Whitman, former Bush EPA

Secretary, was on Fresh Air talking about reclaiming the Republican

Party from it's current leadership. Sounded a lot like the Democratic

floor delegate complaints about leadership at the 2004 Convention.

Responsive government is not a political issue but a necessity for keeping all parties involved in the political process.

Let's find some new ways to really involve Main Street in government.

New Directions

Well yes, I have been floundering for a new direction since the election. The one clear conclusion is that we need more voices articulating visions other than the status quo. Then when I was cleaning up some old emails I came across this URL to a radio commentary from Andre Cordrescu on NPR. It is still fresh and inspiring. I recommend you click here and listen.

Tibetan Text Preservation Project

If you have an old Pentium based laptop laying around please consider donating it to the Tibetan Village Project. Work is underway to digitize a large number of rare texts. You can read about the project here.

As usual, I know of no donation that offers more service for your money.

Boulder High Talent Show Draws National Attention

School Talent Show Draws Secret Service

Colorado Band Singing Dylan Song Seen as Threatening President Bush

- Parents and students say they are outraged and offended by a proposed band name and song scheduled for a high school talent show in Boulder this evening, but members of the band, named Coalition of the Willing, said the whole thing is being blown out of proportion.

The students told ABC News affiliate KMGH-TV in Denver they are performing Bob Dylan's song "Masters of War" during the Boulder High School Talent Exposé because they are Dylan fans. They said they want to express their views and show off their musical abilities.

But some students and adults who heard the band rehearse called a radio talk show Thursday morning, saying the song the band sang ended with a call for President Bush to die.

Threatening the president is a federal crime, so the Secret Service was called to the school to investigate.

Students in the band said they're just singing the lyrics and not inciting anyone to do anything.

The 1963 song ends with the lyrics: "You might say that I'm young. You might say I'm unlearned, but there's one thing I know, though I'm younger than you, even Jesus would never forgive what you do ... And I hope that you die and your death'll come soon. I will follow your casket in the pale afternoon. And I'll watch while you're lowered down to your deathbed. And I'll stand o'er your grave 'til I'm sure that you're dead."

'We Were Just Singing'

The students told KMGH they never threatened the president and never changed the lyrics to the song.

"It's just Bob Dylan's song. We were just singing Bob Dylan's song ... If you think it has to do with Bush that's because you're drawing your own conclusions. We never conveyed that Bush was the person we were talking about," said Allysse Wojtanek-Watson, a singer for the band.

"She never said anything about killing Bush ... It's crazy, it's chaos. We have nothing in there it says about killing Bush," band leader Forest Engstrom told KMGH.

The principal of the school said he stands behind the students.

"Never was it rehearsed or auditioned with a change of lyrics. I want to be very clear about that," Boulder principal Ron Cabrera said.

Cabrera said Secret Service agents questioned him for 20 minutes and took a copy of the lyrics. They did not ask to speak to any of the students but they did question a teacher who had supervised a student protest that was held at the school last weekend.

Despite the controversy, the Boulder School District said it will allow the students to perform this evening.

"Boulder High School has expectations for the appropriateness of talent show acts and those expectations are communicated to the performers. Over the course of the rehearsals, the faculty has worked with the performers to create a show that falls within those expectations. School staff have monitored the performance and spoken with the students and are satisfied that the performance is simply student expression and not a threat against anyone," Boulder Schools spokeswoman Susan Cousins said in a statement.

During the rehearsals for the show, teachers Jim Vacca and Jim Kavanaugh played backup in the band at the students' request but the teachers decided not to perform this evening because they don't want to detract from the students' performance, Cousins said.

The band had at one point considered calling itself The TaliBand, but the students decided against it after discussing with Vacca whether the name would be offensive to some people, she said.

Promoting a 'Leftist View?'

Vacca praised a group of 70 students after they camped out overnight in the school library last week to protest the results of the presidential election and to announce their worries about the direction of the country. The students wanted to meet with Colorado's political leaders to get assurances that they were being heard.

The students said they worried about war, a return of the draft and the future of the environment after the election in which they could not participate.

"In an age where narcissistic college students riot in an inarticulate drunken stupor, you have students here at Boulder High School, principled, thoughtful and yet scared of four more years of pre-emptive war, the Patriot Act and an increase in militarism at school through the No Child Left Behind Act," Vacca had said. But other people said they are upset students and teachers are allowed to put on such a performance, and some say the high school students are being manipulated by the adults.

"These kids are being used to promote an extreme leftist point of view on the taxpayers' dime," Boulder resident James Lemons told KMGH.

He said other students who saw the tryouts and were upset by the presentation discussed it with their parents but are afraid of speaking up because of the political environment within the school and in Boulder, considered the most liberal city in Colorado.

The principal said Lemons' accusations and allegations are untrue and unfounded.

"I feel that the school and these students have been accused without being able to confront their accusers," Cabrera said, adding that no student or parent had talked to him about the allegations. "Why would someone do that?"

Copyright © 2004 ABC News Internet Ventures

Two more election spots for the broadband equipped

This site tracks calls to the national voter alert hotline by state.

The New York Times seems to have up to date running totals on their front page. More indepth if you subscribe.

While you are waiting for things to load, contemplate instant runoff voting.

Election Night and Beyond?

Those who are concerned about an endless post election period of legal wrangling and indecision may or may not take comfort from this opinion by George Friedman of Strategic Forecasting that appeared on Dave Farber's IP List yesterday. The chances of another perfect tie of the sort we saw in 2000 are remote but interested parties have had four years to devise legal responses to a vote that is not nearly as close. Let's hope for a result that renders all of that moot.

If like me you dread the compulsion of channel surfing to keep up with results you might consider staring at your computer screen instead. The Electoral Vote Predictor has been tracking the polls, all of them, for months and mapping delegates from the latest results. The votemaster promises to keep things up to date through the night and beyond if necessary. Well worth a click here to see what's going on.

Then and Now

November 4, 1952, election night. Your blogger is not yet one year old. The race between Eisenhower and Stevenson is said to be too close to call. Remington Rand approaches CBS with a proposition. Let us match early vote totals with past voting patterns using 16000 pounds of computing power known as UNIVAC and we will forecast a winner.

Now of course as this LA Times article suggests " a musical Hallmark card has more processing power" but television's first experience with computers was too much for the CBS to believe and they chose not to air the results which nonetheless turned out to be accurate within 3% of the final total. Eisenhower by a landslide.

Fifty two years on every political analyst has a mountain of data and processing power at the ready and years of experience have shown where to look for support and what sort of appeals are most successful. Once again we have a race probably too close too call, but one of a very different sort. I believe most voters would gladly choose Stevenson or Eisenhower over the current challengers but we have evolved far beyond that possiblility, for better or worse. Modern candidates are selected and marketed in the most sophisticated ways ever devised. Do they mirror American hopes and values with even an ounce more accuracy?

Tuesdays election would seem fated to have an historic effect regardless of the outcome (if any). A Republican victory will be a mandate for security above all else. One third of the voting public may realize they have no hope of passing the social agenda they support short of perhaps joining the European Union. A Democratic victory will temporarily restore a bit of faith that change can flow from a vigorous outpouring of new voters and desperate political veterans. The booby prize is the current world situation which is even more desperate than usual.

Don't forget to join in the fun, no matter what your persuasion.

City of the Future - Past

Veteran readers will want to check out the October 18 issue of the New Yorker for "Green Manhattan", an essay on America's most sustainable city, NYC! Here is an excerpt

Bright Green Mega-City

To Know It for the First Time — Place, Environment and Ecology

David Owen writes a love song to the environmental cred of New York City in the October 18, 2004 issue of The New Yorker. I'd call it required reading for Worldchangers--but it's not online, so get thee to the library or magazine stand.

When I was planning to move back east from Oregon in 1999, most friends wondered how I could do it after nine years in Ecotopia. One said she could never live in the east because she liked "big weather," and that stood in for everything big and natural in the Pacific Northwest.

Truthfully, after obsessing on the Pacific Northwest for half a lifetime (I'd begun reading Ursula K. Le Guin at an impressionable age), and figuring I'd gone to environmentalist heaven on earth once I got there, ecological virtues were not high on my list of the gains to be made by moving Back East. Proximity to family, diverse art, new music, and (at the time) a hopping job market--plus the comfort of slipping on an old skin after being an expat--those were the goals.

I do miss seeing Mount Hood on the horizon beyond the Hawthorne Bridge, and New York City lacks some qualities of life that I liked a lot out west, like QUIET. But we've got big weather here--nearly every hurricane that hits Florida ends up being a torrential rainstorm in the northeast within a week of North American landfall, never mind the thunder and lightning. The mountains are old and worn, but Atlantic's just as vast as Pacific, and what's more, I can get to both by mass transit instead of renting a car. In fact, preservation of wilderness, biodiversity, and climate stability will likely rely more and more on humans congregating in concentrated, energy-efficient, mass-transit enabled mega-cities like this one.

As Owen describes it,

By the most significant measures, New York is the greenest community in the United States, and one of the greenest cities in the world. The most devatating damage humans have done to the environment has arisen from the heedless burning of fossil fuels, a category in which New Yorkers are practically prehistoric. The average Manhattenite consumes gasoline at a rate that the country as a whole hasn't matched since the mid-nineteen-twenties, when the most widely owned car in the United States was the Ford Model T. Eighty-two per cent of Manhattan residents travel to work by public transit, by bicycle, or on foot. That's ten times the rate for Americans in general, and eight times the rate for residents of Los Angeles County. New York City is more populous than all but eleven states; if it were granted statehood, it would rank fifty-first in per-capita energy use...

When most Americans think about environmentalism, they picture wild, unspoiled landscapes--the earth before it was transmogrified by human habitation. New York City is one of the most thoroughly altered landscapes imaginable, an almost wholly artificial environment...[E]cology-minded discussions of New York City often have a hopeless tone, and focus on ways in which the city might be made to seem somewhat less oppressively man-made...[B]ut most such changes would actually undermine the city's extraordinary energy efficiency, which arises from the characteristics that make it surreally synthetic.

Compromises

Imagine your current car running on sustainable biofuels with 40% better fuel economy. Imagine that all this could be done without any loss of power using existing technologies. Imagine that you could replace that car with one that had a similarly powerful hybrid drivetrain but 70% better fuel economy!

This is the modern promise of Rudolph Diesel's 100 year old invention. Diesel power has a really bad rap in the United States but in Europe (signatory nations to the Kyoto Protocols) diesels now appear in 40% of the new car fleet. Maybe $4+ per gallon gas has something to do with that too.

Read America's only Pulitzer Prize winning automotive journalist Dan Neil's careful consideration of this neglected alternative here.

Framing the Debate

We live in a time that often seems to be driven by image and "snapshot", soundbite journalism. In such a time it is good to remember that words really do have the power to articulate, define and discriminate. This article from The Boston Globe discusses how Europe and the United States regard the problem of terrorism differently and why.

Here is an excerpt.

For the United States, the response to Sept. 11 was to launch a "war on terrorism," one cast in terms of good and evil and marked with somber ceremonies, fought more with armies than with indictments. But for Spain as well as for France, Germany, and Britain, all countries that have suffered a history of terrorist violence, the focus is a "struggle" against a criminal element.

Modern Myths and Ancient History

Wondering what George W. Bush's secret appeal is? Read this article by Ira Chernus on last night's debate.

When Hoshi Motors moved into the building at the corner of Folsom and Spruce the neighborhood reflected Its "edge of town" roots. But things were changing fast. The railroad spur that ran behind us was taken out first. Bradfield Lumber sat where the city park is now located. Across Pearl from Barnsley Tire was an old residence surrounded by trees that was soon scraped off to become Mike's Camera and the studios of KBCO radio.

KBCO was a success story for the modern Boulder. The post Pearl Street Mall Boulder if you will. Under the supervision of Bob Greenlee who seemed to let the staff abandon play lists and play what they liked, KBCO went from zero to top of the market, inventing the alternative rock format without knowing they were doing it. Bob then sold the station for a fabulous amount of money. His proceeds went to the I Have A Dream Foundation and some token Republican candidacies in our fair city among other things.

KBCO was acquired by Clear Channel, apparently a success story for modern America. The post 911 era so to speak. Now the Boulder County Business Report says that a conference room is being remodeled to become the studio of Air America Networks new Boulder station KKZN 760 AM.

I think I can smell the irony from here.

Slippery Slope

Doesn't it seem that in a calmer more rational time we would look at the "end of oil" as a market opportunity for sustainable energy solutions? Imagine the increased efficiency of solar panels if we chose to provide sustained investment in research. How about simple things like energy efficient building materials from sustainable or recycled materials?

This article from the Toronto Star articulates some of the scarier aspects of our current energy path. Those not tired of the political implications of Big Oil will find it interesting reading. Here is an excerpt:

Particularly worrisome is the arithmetic as it applies to the U.S. With its oil production already long past peak, and yet its oil consumption rising, the U.S. will inevitably become more reliant on foreign oil. This is significant not just for Americans, but for the world, since the U.S. has long characterized its access to energy as a matter of "national security." With its unrivalled military power, the U.S. will insist on meeting its own voracious energy needs — and it will be up to the rest of the world to co-operate with this quest. Period

Clustering Misfits

Pity the station wagon lover in the United States. For nearly ten years most Japanese carmakers have abandoned this segment to sell yet another SUV. The rest of the world gets sensible large hatches. We get a tall four wheel drive box with a lot of butch plastic moldings on the side.

Once in a while we get a glimpse of how things could be.

This is the Honda FR-V. Sound a little familiar? Here in the states we have this chassis with an SUV body and it's called the CRV. Could we see it here? Consider its staggering number of Out of It qualifications.

1.It debuts at the snooty Paris Auto Show. (John Kerry speaks French!)

2. It's really a big 5 door hatchback. (Americans hate hatches unless they are bloated minivans.)

3. The top motor is a turbodiesel. (If it's not in a truck, we hate it.)

4. There is no available V6. (How are you going to pass people going up to Eisenhower tunnel.}

5. It has weird 3 abreast seating in two rows!

6. Those weird center seats both slide back to form a sort of flying V configuration.

7. The rear end looks sort of like a Buick Rendezvous or Pontiac Aztek.

8.The spec sheet reads like something from your high school physics class. How many horsepower is a kilowatt?

Honda FR-V

Will we see it in the United States? Maybe if fuel costs continue to rise. Here's hoping it doesn't appear as Acura's first hybrid vehicle at the $24000 price point.

Think Locally Write Globally

Ira Chernus is a professor of Religious Studies at the University of Colorado and a local favorite of Out of It. Why? Because of articles like this one that challange majorities on the right and the left to seekthe underlying truth in the current political debate. Need support for the Out of It lifestyle. Start by reading this.

More Fundraising

Dedicated Out of It readers will remember the Tibetan Village Project that is based in Boulder.If you are new, please see the Archives for a short description. They are currently building a bigger clinic and in need of support. Your money will not go further anywhere else. Please consider giving.

Tamdin Wangdu who coordinates the project sent this today.

Tashi Delek!

Please help us to meet our challenge grant and finish this medical clinic on time! We have received a generous $1,250 grant from Icelandic Design in Longmont, Colorado. IcelandicDesign.com will match dollar to dollar through our eBay store and general contribution up to $1250.

The Tibetan Village Project is expanding our medical program by building a bigger clinic, and supporting two full-time doctors and one part-time administrative person. The clinic will serve abo