This company that monopolizes the skyline was stupid enough to think they could accept the media buy of a pro-Gaza group without pro-Israel groups pressuring them to take down the signs.
Apr 30, 2009
Imagine trying to read this book to a group of giggling 6th graders.
Kestrel then realised she was still carrying her nut-socks round her neck, and that in one of the socks there was one mudnut remaining. She unhooked it and reached out to Mumpo.
"Here you are, Mumpo."
As she swung it towards him, she felt the weight of the mudnut, and letting it swing back, she set it circling round and round at the end of the sock. Her eyes followed the swinging weighted end.
"Bo!" she cried out. "Have you got any mudnuts left?"
Bowman felt the nut-socks round his neck. One mudnut left in each. He had distrubuted the last two that way, for balance.
"Two," he said.
"Here's how we keep them away from us," said Kestrel, and she swung her weighted nut-sock through the air before her.
"Mudnuts won't hurt them."
"They don't have to. All we have to do is knock them off balance."
"Or us."
"Remember, we're young and bendy. They're old and stiff."
Not at all convinced, Bowman tried swinging his nut-sock round and round, and nearly fell off the wall. Hear pounding, sweat streaming down his body, he righted himself.
I can be forgiven for accidentally saying "nut sack" by the end of the chapter.
Apr 29, 2009
Who's this raging psycho hottie? 
Clue: absolute fucking moron.
I first heard about this lady as the chick defending Americans' First Amendment right to free light bulbs. Huh?
Her letter says that the energy bill "forces consumers and businesses to use only light bulbs chosen for them by the government" and that further study "is simple due diligence."
Ja, whatever. She would have been so awesome in 1776.
The next time I saw her she was on Chris Matthews reading from her father's 1950s diary:
What I would say -- what I would say is that the news media should do a penetrating expose and take a look. I wish they would. I wish the American media would take a great look at the views of the people in Congress and find out, are they pro-America or anti-America? I think people would love to see an expose like that.
Ok, fair enough, she's a bit extreme. But holy shit, don't stick her in your 9th grade history class and expect her to pass, especially while on the conservative talk radio circuit.
First, she whipped up outrage over Obama's plan to replace the dollar with a "global foreign currency" and even went so far as to introduce legislation to prohibit him from doing so. Srsly?
Second, she, uh, didn't mean to make any accusations, but, uh, well:
I find it interesting that it was back in the 1970s that the swine flu broke out then under Democrat President Jimmy Carter. And I'm not blaming this on President Obama, I just think it is an interesting coincidence.
Then everyone laughed at her because the flu pandemic she referenced actually began under Gerald Ford, coincidently a Repub. So she went to the library and studied rilly, rilly hard and came back to the floor today to lay the depression at FDR's feet because he was responsible for the Hoot-Smalley Bill, something actually called Smoot-Hawley that was co-authored by two Repubz and signed by Herbert Hoover, yet another Repub.
This chick is awesome. I want to bang her.
Apr 27, 2009
Jan. 22: Obama orders the closure of Guantanamo Bay prison within a year and declares that the United States will not engage in torture.
Jan 23: Obama lifts ban on federal funding for international organizations that perform or provide information on abortions.
Jan. 27: Obama gives first formal television interview as president to Arab television station, telling Muslims, "Americans are not your enemy."
Jan. 29: Obama signs first bill into law, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, making it easier for workers to sue for pay discrimination
Feb. 9: Obama holds first prime-time news conference, urging Congress to enact his economic stimulus plan.
Feb. 13: Congress completes action on a $787 billion economic stimulus package of tax cuts and new spending, intended to jolt the country out of the worst recession in 50 years.
Feb. 17: Obama signs the stimulus measure into law.
Feb. 24: Obama addresses a joint session of Congress for the first time, focusing on economic issues.
Feb. 27: Obama announces withdrawal of all American combat forces from Iraq by August 2010, but says the U.S. will leave tens of thousands of support troops behind.
March 5: Obama hosts daylong White House summit on health care.
March 9: Obama reverses President George W. Bush's ban on federally funded embryonic stem cell research, and declares that all federal scientific research will be walled off from political influences.
March 11: Obama signs a $410 billion spending bill to keep the government running for the rest of the 2009 budget year. He calls the measure "imperfect" because it includes money for special projects set aside by members of Congress, a practice he pledged to end during the 2008 campaign.
March 16: Obama declares he will stop insurer American International Group Inc. from paying millions in executive bonuses after receiving billions in federal bailout funds.
March 19: Obama becomes the first sitting president to appear on the "Tonight" show.
March 20: Obama releases video message to people of Iran in celebration of Nowruz, the Persian new year and the first day of spring.
March 26: Obama holds "Open for Questions", the first virtual town hall meeting at the White House.
March 27: Obama announces comprehensive new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, including the deployment of 4,000 more military trainers to Afghanistan.
March 30: Obama asserts unprecedented government control over the auto industry, rejecting turnaround plans by General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC, and engineering the ouster of GM's chief executive, Rick Wagoner.
March 31: Obama travels to London, the first stop on an eight-day, six country tour of Europe and the Middle East.
April 1: Obama meets with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and announces start of negotiations on new strategic arms-control treaty.
April 1: Obama and first lady Michelle Obama have a private audience with Queen Elizabeth at Buckingham Palace.
April 1: The month of March shows Consumer spending in the U.S. rose in January after six successive monthly declines and that the stock markets rose to their highest point in over 2 years, evidence of the stimulus working.
April 2: Obama attends the Group of 20 economic summit in London, where leaders agree to bail out developing countries, stimulate world trade and regulate financial firms more stringently.
April 4: Obama attends NATO summit in Strasbourg and gets commitment from allies to send up to 5,000 more military trainers and police to Afghanistan.
April 5: Obama launches an effort to rid the world of nuclear weapons, calling them, during a speech in Prague, "the most dangerous legacy of the Cold War."
April 6: Obama speaks to Turkey's parliament, declaring that "the United States is not, and will never be, at war with Islam."
April 7: Obama pays a surprise visit to Iraq, meeting with U.S. troops and Iraqi leaders.
April 9: Obama sends a request to Congress for $83.4 billion for military and diplomatic operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
April 10: Obama says the economy is showing "glimmers of hope" after meeting with top economic officials.
April 12: Obama authorizes a military rescue of an American sea captain taken hostage by pirates in the waters off Somalia. The rescue results in the deaths of three pirates and the capture of the fourth, and frees Capt. Richard Phillips.
April 13: The administration announces that Cuban-Americans will be permitted to make unlimited transfers of money and visits to relatives in Cuba. The decision also clears away most regulations that had stopped American companies from bringing high-tech services and information to Cuba.
April 16: Obama meets with Mexican President Felipe Calderon on his first trip to Mexico and Latin America. The leaders agree to cooperate on combating drug violence along the U.S.-Mexican border.
April 17: Obama releases memos from Bush administration authorizing harsh interrogation techniques but says no CIA employees who followed the memos will be prosecuted.
April 17: Obama travels to Trinidad and Tobago for the 34-nation Summit of the Americas and declares that he "seeks a new beginning with Cuba."
April 18: At the summit, Obama shakes hands with Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, the leftist, anti-American leader who had called Bush a devil.
April 19: Obama calls on Cuba to release political prisoners as a way to improve relations with the U.S.
April 20: Obama holds the first formal Cabinet meeting of his administration, ordering department heads to slice spending by $100 million, a tiny fraction of the $3.6 trillion federal budget he proposed a month earlier.
April 21: Obama leaves the door open for prosecution of federal lawyers who wrote harsh interrogation memos during Bush administration and says if there's an investigation, it should be done by an independent commission.
April 22: Obama makes his first visit as president to Iowa, the state where his 2008 Democratic caucus victory launched him toward the presidency.
April 23: Obama tells congressional leaders he will not support creation of an independent commission to investigate the Bush administration's harsh interrogation techniques.
April 27: Obama says the government is concerned about the spreading swine flu virus, and orders 10 million emergency doses of Tamiflu and also begins vaccine seed production in preparation for possible pandemic threat.
Apr 26, 2009
Apr 25, 2009
OK, I know that Dr. Horrible is so totally 2008, but I just finally got around to watching it on Hulu (42 min), and I have to say that I'm pretty impressed. I don't know if Joss Whedon and company made any money off of the enterprise, but the concept is fairly awesome: you get your buddies together, get a website, and make the exact movie that you want to without worrying about producers, or advertisers, or distribution. (Which is probably the only way anyone could ever pull off a geeky musical comedy about a hapless super-villain whose arch-enemy steals the girl of his dreams.) With big-time talent like Whedon, Nathan Fillion, and Neil Patrick Harris, Dr. Horrible sets the stage for quality indie-TV on the web--where creativity and fun have free reign. Let's hope we get more like it.
Apr 23, 2009
I don't know much about this Shepard Smith guy on Fox News, but every once in awhile video pops up of him on some liberal blog under the heading Going Rogue, LOL. And whatever commentary accompanies the video predictably concludes with: I guess Fox is capable of actual journalism, snicker. Then JGW nods his head in approval because he has grown disaffected and bored with LOL.
This is fun. He even says really loud, Copulation! But instead of copulation he uses an expletive that ends with a palatal stop, producing a sort of popping sound to further emphasize his disgust, before tacking on the -ing grammatical rules require.
Apr 22, 2009
Space Zombie was telling me the other day about how good Kanye West used to be – before he joined the rest of the rap flock and started using the vocoder extensively in every song. He referred to the song “Jesus Walks” and said that back in the day Kanye used to sing about things like “feeling like a piece of shit in the hospital” while recovering and relearning to walk. This took me by surprise, so I checked the lyrics:
Yo, We at war
We at war with terrorism, racism, and most of all we at war with ourselves
(Jesus Walks)
God show me the way because the Devil trying to break me down
(Jesus Walks with me) with me, with me, with me [fades]
You know what the Midwest is?
Young & Restless
Where restless (Niggas) might snatch your necklace
And next these (Niggas) might jack your Lexus
Somebody tell these (Niggas) who Kanye West is
I walk through the valley of the shadow of death is
Top floor the view alone will leave you breathless Uhhhh!
Try to catch it Uhhhh! It's kinda hard hard
Getting choked by the detectives yeah yeah now check the method
They be asking us questions, harass and arrest us
Saying "we eat pieces of shit like you for breakfast"
Huh? Yall eat pieces of shit? What's the basis?
We ain't going nowhere but got suits and cases
A trunk full of coke rental car from Avis
My momma used to say only Jesus can save us
Well momma I know I act a fool
But I'll be gone 'til November I got packs to move I Hope
[Hook x2]
(Jesus Walks)
God show me the way because the Devil trying to break me down
(Jesus Walks with me)
The only thing that that I pray is that my feet don't fail me now
(Jesus Walks)
And I don't think there is nothing I can do now to right my wrongs
(Jesus Walks with me)
I want to talk to God but I'm afraid because we ain't spoke in so long
To the hustlers, killers, murderers, drug dealers even the strippers
(Jesus walks with them)
To the victims of Welfare for we living in hell here hell yeah
(Jesus walks with them)
Now hear ye hear ye want to see Thee more clearly
I know he hear me when my feet get weary
Cause we're the almost nearly extinct
We rappers are role models we rap we don't think
I ain't here to argue about his facial features
Or here to convert atheists into believers
I'm just trying to say the way school need teachers
The way Kathie Lee needed Regis that's the way I need Jesus
So here go my single dog radio needs this
They say you can rap about anything except for Jesus
That means guns, sex, lies, video tapes
But if I talk about God my record won't get played Huh?
Well let this take away from my spins
Which will probably take away from my ends
Then I hope this take away from my sins
And bring the day that I'm dreaming about
Next time I'm in the club everybody screaming out
(Jesus Walks)
God show me the way because the devil trying to break me down
(Jesus Walks)
The only thing that that I pray is that my feet don't fail me now
(Jesus Walks)
And I don't thing there's nothing I can do now to right my wrongs
(Jesus walks with me... fades)
I want to talk to God but I'm afraid because we ain't spoke in so long
Now, I know SZ’s arch-enemy is Google, but he had to know I was going to look up the lyrics. But, my point isn’t to prove SZ wrong, but to refute the general consensus that Kanye was some kind of poignant, conscientious rapper.
I’d invite someone to point me to an instance where Kanye shows something beyond the lyrical norm of boasting, bitterness, and combativeness. I like all three of these things in my rap music, but let’s not pretend that Kanye is (or was) something extraordinary.
If he’s ever had a moment of humility, I haven’t seen it. It would be a nice touch and would raise the value of his lyrics in my eyes. The closest I think he’s ever come is admitting that while he is obsessed with designer labels, it’s kind of silly for him as well as detrimental for people that can’t afford it. I couldn’t find the song where he talks about this, though. I might have made it up a la this SZ hospital story.
Kanye makes nice beats though. That Turkish flute in the Jay-Z song Big Pimpin’ was some good stuff.
Check it--presidential porn woo!
In Join Or Die, I paint myself having sex with the Presidents of the United States in chronological order. I am interested in humanizing and demythologizing the Presidents by addressing their public legacies and private lives. The presidency itself is a seemingly immortal and impenetrable institution; by inserting myself in its timeline, I attempt to locate something intimate and mortal. I use this intimacy to subvert authority, but it demands that I make myself vulnerable along with the Presidents. A power lies in rendering these patriarchal figures the possible object of shame, ridicule and desire, but it is a power that is constantly negotiated.
I approach the spectacle of sex and politics with a certain playfulness. It would be easy to let the images slide into territory that's strictly pornographic—the lurid and hardcore, the predictably "controversial." One could also imagine a series preoccupied with wearing its "Fuck the Man" symbolism on its sleeve. But I wish to move beyond these things and make something playful and tender and maybe a little ambiguous, but exuberantly so. This, I feel, is the most humanizing act I can do.
Apr 21, 2009
Because there's a photoblog for everything....Hipsters!!
To co-opt the words of Charles Bukowski, unfortunately, God made quite a lot of photoblog writers, but very little photoblog writing. There are quite a lot of photoblogs with good ideas, but pretty poor writing. This hipster one is a version of this (except for the line about hipspanics)...as is this rapper one.
I think that a photoblog about ridiculous rap lyrics is a good idea, but man the commentary is very juvenile - the age, not the rapper.
My current favorite photoblog is fuckyoupenguin. If you haven't checked it out yet, you really should.
It's a slow culture day, so I figured I'd post my friend's procrastination.
And a rant from the same lady against certain tendencies of the Facebook crowd. As I began reading I thought it would echo the laughs JGW and I have over the status update, but her pet peeve is found under a completely different tab. I may have LOLOL'd at some point. Basic gist:
Because facebook, and anything with a profile function really, turns normal people (see: boring assholes) into motivational speaker assholes…
Zinger:
“A woman’s heart should be so hidden in Christ that a man must be seeking the Lord to find it.”
I like this one a lot, because it’s sort of about love, but mostly just about hegemony, misogyny, and Jesus. Which is kind of totally the best thing ever. All it’s missing is a racial slur.
Just wanted to let everyone know that the stalking charges brought against Nate Dogg in 2008 were officially dropped last week when the LA county prosecutors stated that the stalkee (Nate's estranged wife) never actually contacted them.
Now, "call it what you want too (want to-oo want to-oo)," but it's "very hard to resist" making jokes about Nate Dogg singing, "Never leave me alone" 8 or so times on the chorus to one of his biggest solo singles entitled...."Never Leave Me Alone..."
Man, that Dogg sure does tie nice bows...
Lastly, I just randomly tossed the racist tag on this one since it has to do with the county of L.A. Feel free to disagree.
Apr 20, 2009
My friend (and ex-boss) Justin has started twitter accounts for his kids. He wanted to remember the funny stuff they say all the time. They are not old enough to use twitter themselves, but until they are... he's posting the funny things they say, as soon as they say them, from his iphone. Things like "That's imposterous!"
It is pretty funny and definitely an interesting idea.
Here is his original blog post. It links to all of their personal pages (that Justin also made) and their twitter accounts.
Apr 15, 2009
In response to a photo album I've been compiling on Facebook, Moon Tramp has put forth a question: Who is The Nuj? Well, in basic terms, this is The Nuj: 
Sam Nujoma [pronounced new-yo-mah] was the figurehead behind the Namibian revolution and the country's first president. Simple enough, I suppose, but The Nuj [pronounced like New Jack City, but without the -ack City] is a bit more than a simple ex-president. If he simply served his term and peaced out to his farm we'd call him Nujoma. But since he hasn't we call him The Nuj, a term coined by my old friend and JGW and Screamin' Jesus' new friend Anna, who has a way of impressing her vernacular upon you.
The reason The Nuj is better as a character than a real man of his stature is because of his very public battle between the urge to maintain power like other African Big Man and the fact [well, I guess not a fact, per se, since I'm about to use the word seems] that he seems to understand it doesn't tend to end well for them. The Namibian struggle was conducted in tandem [though not coordinated] with the ANC's resistance to apartheid South Africa, and The Nuj's organization, Swapo, adopted many of the same ideals as an end to diplomatic means. Unfortunately for his Big Man career, traipsing around the world and chatting with the UN General Assembly leaves quite the written account of your public stance, so after 30 years of Representative Democracy, yo!, the advent of freedom means tiptoeing around hypocrisy. To wit, the Namibian constitution allows for two five-year terms. After The Nuj's second ran its course, he stood for a third term because the constitution said he could be elected to two terms, and the first term was given by special appointment, or something like that. Basically, general African politics. He showed signs of maneuvering for a fourth term but ultimately "stepped aside" so his BFF from the rev could take his desk for a ride. I say "stepped aside" because he was still Swapo President, now the ruling par-tay, which meant he was Hifikepunye's boss and got to say silly things. Like a year ago when he went to have lemonade with this guy:
Rob Mug was all, the British are coming! The British are coming! And the The Nuj was like, If the British come by sea then we'll send the Swapo army. And everyone had to tell the old guy that Swapo doesn't have an army, Namibia does, and might that be up to the President's discretion, not yours? Things like that.
I hope that kind of explains things for you, MT.
This game makes you feel like an idiot by naming some random city somewhere on Earth and then giving you a ridiculously short period of time to figure out where it is. If you like to feel angry, stressed out, and fucking retarded at the same time, I recommend this game.
Space Zombie is officially in 15815th place on the leader board.
A new word? It was for me when I started reading Spook Country, a book by William Gibson. So what? There are new words all the time. Well, it is more the word that this word is attached to: Locative Art. Using the GPS system, some sort of interface (think virtual reality helmet, or even a cell phone), a router, and the internet to tie a artist's virtual construct to a specific location. What you end up with is the equivalent of a sculpture (for example) that exsists in one location, has dimensions, can be viewed from any angle, but is only visible with the before mentioned interface.
It's a brilliant idea, and I love it.
Sure, it sounds a little like virtual reality but instead of bringing reality to you wherever you are at, this forces you to seak out this reality and find it. It melds some fanciful construct or re-creation with reality. It enables an artist to shape a reality that they want you to experience and then just leave it there for you to find (though finding would be difficult since you would need to know not only its physical location but also its cyber location).
Here's what I think is so great about this idea: Artist can create whatever they want and place it wherever they want. Nothing is physically changed, its like an alternate reality that is just sitting there. You could walk through it everyday and never know it exsisted. Plus, multiple artist could use the same real world location without interfering with each others work. This could enable a realitvely unknown artist to use a busy site to display their work. Plus, I just like the idea that there are other realities just outside of my reach.
Sadly when I strated researching locative art I found that it is still a fairly nascent art form, which I guess isn't too surprising since the technology real isn't all the way there yet. Still I was glad to see that progress is being made. And in fact, there is already at least one art fesitval dedicated to the idea. Should be worth keeping an eye out for. If you are curious for a specific example, I direct you to "In Hear, Out there: Yokohama". Enjoy.
Next time someone you know complains about taxes they pay but don't directly benefit from try dropping this. Amidst this article shooting holes in the "tax freedom day" concept I was pointed to these comments, which I like:
I have often gotten into debates with anti-tax folks. They always say that it's their money and the government is stealing their money!
And I always say, no, wrong, that money isn't yours. In the first place, you have no legal right to it. In the second place, you should not have any legal right to it, because you didn't earn it.
This argument rarely goes over well. But it strikes me as obvious. I don't care who you are: you are not the only person whose work went into earning the money in your paycheck. Did the widgets you built this year get to market over government-owned and -paved roads? Did the checks go into government-regulated and -insured banks? Were your contracts enforced by government courts of law? Were you paid for your wares in dollars, backed by the full faith and credit of the US government? Then pony the hell up
On tax freedom day itself:
What they want to argue is something like this: Here in reality, the median hourly wage is roughly $15. Due to the burdensome and onerously oppressive existence of government and taxes, that means the median hourly take-home pay is something more like $10.75. Therefore, the Tax Foundation says, if we were liberated from the existence of government and taxes, someone now making $15 in gross pay would make $15 in net pay.
I don't know which half of that assumption is crazier -- the idea that equivalent jobs would exist with equivalent wages in life Beyond Thunderdome, or the idea that $15 here would have exactly the same purchasing power as 15 units of whatever barter-currency the regional warlords would be accepting in the Hobbesian jungle of the Tax Foundation's idea of utopia.
Spend just five minutes thinking about all of the things that would not exist in anything like their present form in the post-apocalyptic anarchy of TF's alternate reality and you'll start to think that 28.2 percent might be something of a bargain for all that it yields in return.
Apologies in advance to JGW, for whom this was certainly a severe waste of time and utterly obvious piling on of the battered conservatives out there.
Apr 14, 2009
Apr 13, 2009
Fans of 1980's barbarian movies breathed a sigh of relief today as an LA jury finally convicted musical douche-bag and creepy looking guy Phil Spector for the murder of Lana Clarkson. Spector stuck a gun in Clarkson's mouth and executed her six years ago after she refused to suck his wrinkly-ass creepy old guy cock.
Pour out a little for Lana next time you're taking in Barbarian Queen.
Apr 12, 2009
That post had legs because somebody made an interesting claim which someone else bothered to share their disagreement with via rationale beyond "no. you are wrong."
What alternatives (to the auto industry) do they suggest?
Most people suggest green technology and alternative energy as the next growth/export industries for the U.S. The richest countries in the world right now are so because they can export energy. Apologies for the lack of a link, but some brilliant 80 year old inventor dude converted what I believe was an old auto plant into a large scale soft solar panel manufacturing plant. No other existing facility was big enough and it was, naturally, cheap to obtain. THATs what I'M talkin bout!
That or nano-technology, whatever that means. Brasil, yo!
cars are still a major US export, and considering how out of whack the trade balance already is, what does killing them off accomplish?
They killed themselves off, no? But you're right, "killing them" accomplishes nothing. They have the potential to be a major exporter but since they aren't even making money right now I don't see how they are a major asset to the country's economy. Pouring tax payer money into companies with a long track record of fail is also unlikely to accomplish anything.
"or do they mean let the big three die and see what rises in their place? "
Its hard for me to see an alternative because of how atrophied those companies are. Maybe they can scale down and then build back up though...
Apr 11, 2009
JGW's wife has a tendency to call people out for their non sequiturs by calling them unproductive conversationalists. I like this, but so I don't completely jock her style I call them Lou Holtz Non Sequiturs instead. But now, thanks to Lank, I've found a more appropriate response. From now on, when face-to-face with an unproductive conversationalist, I'm no longer going to reference Lou Holtz. Instead, I'm going to look dooder in the face and say:
I don’t wipe my ass with a corn cob to feel alive. I like the smooth ride of toilet paper.
Giddy up, horsie.
If Fashion superstar Michael Kors' new Spring-Summer line is any indicator, back is definitely back! We can also expect bold solids and a (toned down) return to the checkers and prints that were so popular in the '80's for a little more fun in the sun.
Straight lines are also still in, so stay away from pleats, relaxed-fit, and anything that is too big or too small.
Apr 10, 2009
Not too long ago some disparaging remarks were made about cars in general, but classic cars in specific. As a person who is working on an old truck this didn't sit right with me. So it's been percolating around in my head since then and finally it has brewed itself into a blog post. So here you go classic car haters, my defense of those wonderful machines. (Note: since I am in the restoration camp and not the rodding camp, my defense does not include hot rods).
Argument 1: Beauty.
I'll just let the photos speak for themselves, but ask yourself this: Why can't modern car makers design a vehicle that is attractive? They used to do so all the time.
Argument 2: Enjoyability.
To me this one is simple. The classic cars belong to an age when they were still machines, not black boxes that simply convey you from place to place in an isolated bubble. Riding in an old car is a different experience. You are not isolated, you feel the vehicle, the road, and since you probably don't have AC the window coming through your cool ass vent windows. They're somewhat noisy, the ride isn't necessarily smooth, but that's good. It reminds you that you are alive.
Argument 3: Environmental Impact.
True, it's a given that these old cars pollute more than their newer counter parts, but the thing to remember is that you are not manufacturing a new car, you are saving an old one from the junkyard. How much energy does it take to manufacture a new car? Well it varies, but a rough estimate is the equivalent of 900 gallons of gasoline. If you do the math, which I did, then you see that it takes 20,000 miles of driving your old car to equal the amount of fuel used driving a Prius for the same 20,000 when you include energy used in production (Note: I am making the following assumptions, first that the old car has been restored and engine rebuilt, and that it is a smaller straight-6 type engine that gets around 16mpg). Now if you take that comparison and change the Prius to a normal sedan (around 25mpg) you are looking at 40,000 miles before the energy usage equalizes. That's a pretty good amount of driving.
Final Argument: Economics.
One of the initial disparaging remarks was that cars are money pits. While this is true for new vehicles, it is not necessarily true of vintage vehicles. Take my example vehicle, a 1948 Desoto Custom that is currently for sale on Craigslist. Here's how the costs could break down:
Car: $1500
Paint & Body work: $4000
Engine Rebuild: $2000
Replacement Parts: $2500
For a grand total of $10,000. But how much is a fully restored 1948 Desoto Custom worth you ask? Well glad you did, it's worth around $19,000. So, not only is it worth more than you spent (I am basing my costs on the assumption that aside from the paint, body work, and engine rebuild that you are doing the work yourself as paying someone else to do it can make it vastly more expensive), but it is also much cheaper than a new vehicle. That $10-20,000 saved could easily be used to finance other projects that could change your life in other ways.
So in summary, while restoring a vintage car is not for everybody, it is in fact a worth while and praiseworthy pursuit.
Apr 6, 2009
The folks at thatsmyface.com have come up with a great idea: send them pictures of your head and then they send you an action figure with your head on it. About freaking time--I've been waiting way too long for the Space Zombie action figure to come out.
Apr 5, 2009
It appears that the surge in the drug war is only creating more violence (though the causality probably operates in both directions as a positive feedback loop).
Deductively, it seems that the more we fight the drug cartels, the more difficult we make it to bring product to market, then the more profitable we make drug running, and the more powerful become the cartels.
A trial of decriminalizing drugs seems to have resulted positively, disproving the worry warts who foresaw rampant drug use upon the end of prosecution of drug merchants and consumers.
Is the debate eventually winnable on this?
Apr 1, 2009
Cape Disappointment lighthouse at Fort Canby, Washington, at the mouth of the Columbia River 1910 and 2009.
--John Fletcher Ford, Oregon State University Libraries Collection
--Space Zombie
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
