Normally I would be 100% percent against any sort of bailout of auto companies. I've thought for years that it made no sense that the U.S. government subsidized corporations who made unsafe, inferior, and environmentally harmful products. But now's our chance to change all that. This time I think we should give them money (assuming they really need it, more on that later) but with the following conditions:

1. the fleet average mpg must be at least 35 by 2012
2. at least 20% of new vehicles must be Hypercars by 2012
3. at least 20% of new vehicles must be electric by 2012
4. the top speeds of new vehicles cannot exceed 80 mph
5. all vehicles must have front and side airbags

If you don't know already, you should avoid products with triclosan and triclocarban. These are commonly found in anti-bacterial soaps, toothpastes, and other products. Not only is it possible that they cause cancer in humans, but we've already seen harmful effects on marine life because so much of these chemicals is being emptied into major water systems after it leaves our houses through drain pipes.

Thankfully I don't see either one in the list of ingredients in my Aquafresh, but I really liked my Aveeno shaving gel...

Be prepared for Saudi Arabia to continue its dominance in world energy markets. Most of Saudi Arabia's 840,000 square miles is desert, perfect for capturing solar energy. And aside from the distinct possibility of a relatively weak world economy, there should be no shortage of capital moving into renewable energy as the price of petroleum continues to increase. Transferring the energy to places that need it will be the hard part, particularly to nations on the other side of the world. Considering the density of batteries, I'm not sure how feasible it is to carry batteries on a boat. I'm also not sure how feasible it is to have wires carry high-voltage electricity across the Bering Strait, if land transfer made more sense, particularly considering how far the electricity would have to travel if it came from the desert.

So, I went to check when my girlfriend's KLM flight from Minneapolis would be arriving, but the KLM website says it's canceled. Since I don't want to assume that KL6161 is the same as NW161, I call Northwest's Flight Status line. It also tells me the flight is canceled. So I call the main NWA line and talk to an agent, and glean from her (since she didn't actually say yes when I asked her) that KL6161 and NW161 are the same, but she doesn't know why the KLM flight is listed as canceled. Wow. Negative 500 points for KLM and NWA.

In the fall of 2007 voters shot down Proposition 1, a measure on the ballot in King, Pierce, and Snohomish Counties (the Seattle-Tacoma area). Some voted against it because they saw the big price tag attached to it, and some because they had the foresight to oppose private transit in a crowded, fossil-fuel powered transportation system. 2008 brings a ballot measure which brings back the good parts of Prop 1 while leaving out the bad parts. Please vote Yes on the new Sound Transit ballot measure, so that you can receive:

• light rail expansion, 5-7 years faster than Prop 1
• commuter rail expansion
• express bus service improvements
• station access improvements

If you live in the state of Washington and can vote on I-985, please vote No.

I-985 is sponsored by the anti-tax, anti-equality, anti-environment Tim Eyman, which to any hardcore liberal means a vote of you can't be serious (or is that not an option on the ballot yet?). Eyman seems to think that petroleum is a renewable resource and that population growth will slow to a halt soon. His latest initiative aims to provide congestion relief by:

• opening car pool lanes to everyone during non-peak hours
• locking away tolling revenue from mass transit, securing its use road expansion/improvement projects
• using all money collected from red-light camera fines to "reduce traffic congestion and increase traffic flow"
• increases funding for road emergency response (mind you this is not to help the victims, it's to help the vehicles being slowed by obstructions)

As with a lot of conservative solutions, this all seems reasonable at first glance. But when you think about its long-term effects, it makes almost no sense at all. Reducing congestion on roads will leave people thinking personal transit is the way of the future, that they can continue to live many miles from work without major consequences. It's clear that the market is not working quickly enough in motivating people to switch to mass transit. The future will inevitably be one of reduced energy, powered by wind and solar and biokinetic energy, where people live within walking distance of the place their food is grown, electric mass transport connecting villages to one another. This means extremely major changes in a relatively short period of time. In ten or fifteen years, when gasoline is unaffordable to the lower and lower-middle classes, weather patterns are beginning to spiral out of control, and the economy is in ruin, do you want to look back and think we didn't do everything we could to avoid the situation?

There were some interesting articles in yesterday's The New York Times Magazine (Aug. 10, 2008) . Although about completely different topics (one was about Obama and "the end of black politics," the other about recycling toilet water into the tap water system), there was a common thread between the two which really got me thinking. That thread was the notion that one must be careful when taking steps toward their goal, being sure that the step they're taking will not harm satisfying their goal completely.
Take for example the recycling of plastics. While most of us would agree that recycling is a great thing because it reduces the amount of energy we use (usually), reduces the amount of petroleum we use, and feels darn good, we can't deny that recycling is worse for the environment than not consuming at all. By letting the general public feel like they're doing what they can for the environment by recycling, we may be endangering the goal of reducing consumption to sustainable levels.
So how does one determine if a step forward is worth the risk? I'm not sure there is a good answer. But small steps often raise awareness, and if the general public is not aware of something, they are far less likely to support a big step, particularly if it will result in a short-term financial loss. After a series of small steps, that big step no longer seems so big. (Obama's presidential candidacy is a perfect example, considering blacks went to separate schools, etc. less than half a century ago.)
The hardest part may be knowing when a big step is necessary. Do we fix the rusty bridge, or rebuild it completely? Do we tax gasoline gradually to let the market adjust to renewable energy, or do we outlaw combustion engines? Only time will tell, and hindsight is 50/50.

All vegans and some animal-rights activists and environmentalists try to avoid purchasing products made with leather. Cows do a lot of burping, emitting tons of methane into the atmosphere, and methane accounts for 18% of greenhouse gases, second only to CO2, so the mass breeding cows, particularly to be slaughtered, is clearly bad for the environment, without me even getting into the environmental problems with trying to feed so many cows.
The problem with avoiding leather, besides the fact that it can be difficult in some situations, is that its primary alternative is vinyl, also known as polyvinyl chloride, or PVC (though vinyl comes in other forms). The production and distribution of vinyl is just plain nasty for the biosphere. Thankfully there are some alternatives, but they're catching on somewhat slowly. The easiest thing you can do to start ridding your home of PVC is to buy a non-PVC shower curtain. If you have vinyl flooring or siding that will obviously be more difficult and more expensive to replace, but it may be worth it for your family's health in the long run. And by not buying PVC products in the future (and potentially forcing producers to change to EVA), you may be helping the health of people across the globe.

I recently found out about a new idea for speeding up the economy's transition away from fossil fuels, called cap and dividend. Basically the idea is that the government places an upstream cap on carbon dioxide by forcing first sellers* of fossil fuels to buy permits equal to the CO2 content of their fuels. Then checks are sent out each year (or month) to all legal citizens (or just adults) of the country based on the total value of the carbon permits purchased. The thing I really like about this idea is that it's progressive, meaning each individual gets the same amount no matter what. This is the first idea I've heard that has a decent chance of keeping the lower class above water (at least those who are able to find affordable housing within a distance to work that allows affordable transporation) while the economy is in transition. The average family of four might receive $1,200 to $6,000 per year, according to a study by MIT. The only potential problem I see with cap and dividend is that the inflation that is bound to occur with increasing energy costs affecting all sectors of the economy might overtake the rate at which dividends increase, possibly leading to economic collapse if energy alternatives are not available in large enough quantities (and they won't be). My hope is that people will continue to spend less money on frivolities and focus more on necessities and conservation, with green jobs replacing those that will be lost when people stop buying yachts and hot tubs and Hummers.

* I'm not sure if "first sellers" means prior to any processing or not, but it affects all the players downstream regardless.

This is a response to Ben Stein's article "Running Out of Fuel, but Not Out of Ideas."

Mr. Stein, while I have great respect for you, I have to disagree with your article, and admit that I'm puzzled by it. First of all, I'm curious what your goal was when writing it. The title makes it sound like its primary content relates to the many potential replacements for fossil fuels (biofuels, hydrogen, etc.), but it makes very little mention of new energy sources. Was your goal to alleviate people's worries about an energy crisis by repeating that you think we're in a "short-term oil bubble"? If so, you did not provide any items to support that hypothesis. In fact, you even made a case for the opposite by reminding people how little the government has done to support alternative energy.

It seems like your goal was to persuade people that even though we are in a "true crisis," we need to ramp up oil production as much as possible to get through it, rather than starting to wean ourselves off of oil for good. This hypothesis requires some important assumptions about the somewhat-distant future in order to make any logical sense.

The first assumption is that damaging some ecosystems in order to find oil now will be worthwhile in the long run. Besides the possibility of destroying links in the food chain and reducing the number of livable habitats for humans, there's no guarantee we'll find enough oil to offset a significant amount of economic damage. A related assumption is that the current science being spouted by the overwhelming majority of the scientific community is wrong. By putting forth the idea that we can continue to burn as much oil as we currently do, you're rejecting the assertion from scientists that immediate reductions in carbon dioxide are necessary to avoid worldwide (yes, I'm pointing at you as well, China) catastrophic damage to the environment.

While a stronger economy now probably increases the chances scientists will come up with a long-term solution to our hunger for energy by providing greater resources for research and development, I believe the vital question we need to ask ourselves is this: Is it more important to us that we can live in the suburbs and drive Hummers for the next two decades (probably won't be able to) and avoid complete anarchy from the demolition of our economy/lifestyle (not likely to happen, at least in the U.S.), or is it more important that we save the biosphere before millions or even billions die from incredible natural disasters, a lack of food, etc.?

It's a difficult question to answer, as, with most things, the poorest will suffer the most from high energy prices now, but try to imagine telling your great-grandchildren that they have to live in constant fear of survival because you couldn't imagine riding your bike to work or replacing your swimming pool with a garden for growing vegetables.

Judging from this article, Mark Muller will most likely be president of the United States within the next 20 years.

One of Colbert's best "Words" ever...

"McCain led among whites, NASCAR fans, and elderly voters."
--John Whitesides, Reuters, in reference to the latest Obama-McCain poll

Sometimes I wonder if car companies are secretly run by oil companies and mechanics. How else does one explain the following contradiction?: The goal of a car company, above all else and no matter what they might say, is to make money. Options exist (e.g. the Hypercar, gas-electric hybrids, compressed-air vehicles) that would allow car companies to make money while slowing the destruction of the biosphere. I would say 9 people out of 10 enjoy whining about gas prices, even many people who make so much money it doesn't really affect them.

If so many people want vehicles that lower their fuel expenses, why do car companies continue to manufacture conventional vehicles as the overwhelming majority of their product lines? I think there a few reasons. For one, hybrids have not been profitable until recently according to car companies, presumably because the manufacturing process needed ironing out, and as greater numbers are built the pain points are easier to recognize. Another reason is that new hybrids are not easy to afford for most people (the consumer most affected by gas prices is least likely to be able to afford a hybrid). Also, some people prefer whining to actually being proactive about changing things.

My hope is that we can convince the car companies that changing all of their vehicles whose main purpose is not towing or carrying heavy inanimate loads to Hypercars or something similar would be beneficial to their bottom line and ensure they survive the transition to a non-petroleum economy. This is where the use of the strike comes in. If what I'm saying is true and we can convince the automobile manufacturer's labor unions that they might not have jobs in five years without major changes, they could attempt to use strikes to put pressure on the executives to agree to the product shift. I would imagine the executives would stick by their line of "It's too dangerous to switch without knowing what the market will be like in a few years." Or something like that.

Even if my idea makes sense, it's hard to imagine people striking about something that seems so intangible/unpredictable and isn't explicitly about pay or working conditions.

"Jittery about a political backlash over gasoline costs as prices set yet another record Tuesday, Congress voted to halt deliveries to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in defiance of President Bush." --LA Times

When the Senate votes 97-1 on something, it's pretty much guaranteed that they're doing so because voting Nay puts them at risk of being voted out in the next election. (Note that the one Nay vote was by a senator who's retiring. Also note that on that page there is a poll, and as of 5/15/08 the highest votegetter is No, meaning a lot of people are opposed to the Senate's vote.)
I think I see Bush's point about energy security, but the key thing here is that people would only save 2 to 5 cents per gallon. Even for the lower class, 75 cents is not enough to make a difference in people's ability to pay their bills. Yes it could make a difference for somebody who drives a large truck for a living, but considering how we're already seeing positive effects from the [relatively] high gas prices, I'll have to disagree with the Senate on this one.

Two of my favorite things came together on the evening of May 1st, and not just because I ate a peanut butter cup. One of my favorite writers, James Howard Kunstler, appeared on the Colbert Report to talk about his new novel, World Made By Hand. It's getting decent reviews at Amazon so far, but I plan on picking it up regardless of any reviews since it's a book I might have attempted to write had he not. It's currently the #15 on the top-seller list in Amazon's "Literary" category, so either Atlantic Monthly Press is doing some good marketing or a lot of people are becoming interested in what a post-oil world might look like.

I don't understand why Google is slowly becoming more and more like other search engines. Half the reason I started using Google was that I was frustrated that other search engines didn't search for the exact terms that I typed. Now if I search for, for example, "watin download" (WatiN is a program for computer programmers), a lot of the results, possibly the majority, are returned because of the word "waiting," even though that has nothing to do with what I was searching for. I can force Google to search for exactly the terms I want it to, but it's annoying that I have to do that now.

Seriously. How can a supposed Democrat support McCain's gas tax holiday, even if part of it is attempting to raise taxes on oil companies (which we should be doing no matter what)? If I didn't already think the Obama was a better choice than Clinton, this would be the clincher. Since Horsey and Friedman can express my irritation much better than I, I'll let them do the work:

"It is great to see that we finally have some national unity on energy policy. Unfortunately, the unifying idea is so ridiculous, so unworthy of the people aspiring to lead our nation, it takes your breath away. Hillary Clinton has decided to line up with John McCain in pushing to suspend the federal excise tax on gasoline, 18.4 cents a gallon, for this summer's travel season. This is not an energy policy. This is money laundering: We borrow money from China and ship it to Saudi Arabia and take a little cut for ourselves as it goes through our gas tanks. What a way to build our country."

I went to the second day of the Seattle Green Festival a couple weeks ago. It was basically several rooms with 45-minute speeches/forums and a gigantic main hall with many many booths. All in all it was a good experience, though I did have some complaints. My main problem was that it was too small and too brief to cater to a wide variety of people. By that I mean people just getting into greenosity--whether for financial gain or for the betterment of the planet--on one end, and expert greeners on the other end.
The first speech I went to was given by a former local-news weatherman who now works for Puget Sound Energy, who was there to talk about ways to make your home greener. For some reason I was expecting to hear something new and exciting rather than the same old stuff (e.g. compact fluorescents) mixed with a sales pitch for PSE. The speaker meant well, and maybe the other people there learned some things, but I found it disappointing.
The second speech I went to was given by Chelsea Sexton, the former GM employee featured in Who Killed the Electric Car?, along with a couple other people. It was interesting to hear the optimism of the speakers, but again I didn't walk away feeling like I had learned a lot.
The last speech I went to was from Richard Heinberg, one of my favorite nonfiction writers. He basically did a quick summary of his latest book, Peak Everything: Waking Up to the Century of Declines. I found it enjoyable, and afterwards picked up the book, which he signed for me. I think hearing his speech and having Field Roast's Italian sausage for lunch were the highlights of the day.

I love it when NPR backs me up when I'm totally not expecting it. I commented a while back about how irritating it is (and just plain immoral) that politicians are obsessed with talking about lowering gas prices rather than raising them. Thank you, Len Burman, for helping me feel like I'm not crazy.


"So why the empty rhetoric? Because we'll need much higher gas prices, not price cuts, to fend off the enormous threat of global warming. And no politician -- not even an infamous maverick -- wants to talk about that during an election campaign."

I'm not sure why John McCain is an "infamous maverick," but Len certainly is correct that nobody except for possibly the Green Party wants to talk about higher gas prices during an election year.

I don't know how effective this was in 1943, but it would be incredible if the overwhelming majority of our grease was used as an energy source rather than disposed of. Really all waste needs to be recycled in some fashion in order for civilization to survive into the next millenium, but I'll get into that another time.

Remember the good old days when a 12.5-inch television was big?

http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/adaccess.TV0132/pg.1/

Things have been looking up as of late.

I sent an email to the King County Department of Transportation a couple months ago about enforcing gas mileage minimums on taxis. They basically responded by saying it wasn't their jurisdiction, so then I wrote in to Ask the Mayor, mainly about taxis deadheading. Seattle's Mayor Nickels responded on his show by saying they were looking into fixing the situation. Well anyway, while it's unclear from this article whether it includes STITA taxis, Nickels has actually proposed that all Seattle taxi's get at least 30 mpg! We'll have to wait and see how long it takes before it really happens, if ever, but it's still good news.

In other good news, people outside of the world of science and statistics are starting to see that only certain biofuels have any chance of becoming long-term solutions. Even Boeing and Continental seem to be wising up.

Housing prices are finally coming down from ridiculous heights. This means that I (and other middle-class folks like me) could afford a decent house in Seattle some day (maybe). But what's even better is that lending companies are finally cutting back on terrible loans that they thought would only hurt the borrower, but are now coming back to bit them in the sit bones. If the U.S. didn't already have the largest proportion of its population in prisons, I might spend some time arguing that those involved in purposely ruining the borrowers' lives should go to prison, particularly those who cheated the system. But I digress.

Last but not least, the economy is crashing! This isn't good news for those who have lost their jobs or soon will, but for the future of the world it's great. A crashing economy will surely result in:

• lower consumption, which is obviously key to sustaining life on Earth
• more realistic (i.e. higher) commodity prices that reflect the cost of unsustainable practices
• more realistic (i.e. lower) stock prices for companies that don't care about the cost of unsustainable practices

There is of course bad news with this.

• Savers get hurt by the Fed.
• As companies and people have less disposable income, they're less likely to be green if it's more expensive (wave goodbye to research and development).
• The really annoying bad news is that instead of liquidating corporations who can no longer stay afloat due primarily to their own faults (probably their stock was overvalued in the first place if you consider their donation to the wealth gap and use their ethics as part of their valuation) and making sure the little guy doesn't lose his savings, the Fed and the government are making sure the executives get their millions while the largest corporations gobble up the smaller ones and taxpayers end up paying the bill when megacorps eat up the assets but magically shave off the debts.

I'd like to acquire some stuff, where's my $30 billion?

I have always loved the idea of biomimicry, even before I knew that anybody else thought about it outside of specific applications. Ever since I was little, when found out that the strongest animal in the world, the rhinceros beetle, could lift 850 times its weight (like a human lifting 65 tons), I've felt like understanding the mechanics of the incredible insect could result in amazing applications for humans in many different ways. We could probably learn something useful from a very large number of species. From Wikipedia:

One example is the attempt to learn from and emulate the incredible ability of termites to maintain virtually constant temperature and humidity in their Sub-Saharan Africa homes despite an outside temperature variation from 3 °C and 42 °C (35 °F at night to 104 °F during the day.) Project TERMES (Termite Emulation of Regulatory Mound Environments by Simulation) scanned a termite mound, created 3-D images of the mound structure and provided the first ever glimpse of construction that may likely change the way we build our own buildings. The Eastgate Centre, a mid-rise office complex in Harare, Zimbabwe, (highlighted in this Biomimicry Institute case-study) stays cool without air conditioning and uses only 10% of the energy of a conventional building its size.
Another example is modeling the echolocation of bats in darkness and adapting that functionality into a cane for the visually impaired. Research performed at the University of Leeds (in the UK) led to the UltraCane, a product manufactured, marketed and sold by Sound Foresight Ltd.

Another popular example is how the beak of the kingfisher bird inspired the nose cone of the Japanese Shinkansen bullet train. The list goes on and on.

Here are some problems I think biomimicry might ultimately solve if the world's economy doesn't completely and irreparably collapse.

• desalination of sea water when not enough clean fresh water is available
• safe transportation not requiring an insane amount of resources (metals to build, etc.)
• refrigeration
• cooling
• heating
• antibiotics
• housing that is safe from natural disasters

Looks like I'll have to keep an eye on the state of New York. By some miracle their new governor David Paterson is actually aware of the possibility of peak oil happening in the near future, and of the importance of being prepared for it yesterday.

Apparently the idea of hydrogen fuel cells as home-electricity suppliers in Japan is catching on.

The Japanese government is so bullish on the technology it has earmarked $309 million a year for fuel cell development and plans for 10 million homes - about one-fourth of Japanese households - to be powered by fuel cells by 2020.

Whether their plan is practical depends on the answers to the following:

• Does it make sense to use a fossil fuel (natural gas) that will only get more and more expensive (as demand increases, which it will as developing nations continue to develop) and less and less available?
• Is the decrease in carbon dioxide (assuming there really is one) worth all the manufacturing and transportation that needs to occur to supply homes with the devices?
• Will it make a permanent transition away from fossil fuels easier?

If the answers to these questions are favorable to sustainability, then it's great, but I think hydrogen fuel cells are overhyped in general because there's nothing on the horizon that will give us a renewable yet cost-effective source of hydrogen.

The best thing that could happen to the world actually happened this week: Oil prices went above the all-time inflation-adjusted record price of $103.76/barrel. I'm going to celebrate by recycling my SUV into a large LCD television. Okay, not really, but it seems like it could be done. Anyways, I am excited that the trend is supposed to continue, even though politicians like nothing better than complaining about gasoline prices.

Ever stop to think about all the products you've come to depend on that are made of plastic? It's pretty disturbing when you consider that plastic is almost always made of petroleum, and that the energy used to transport the petroleum and create the final product was almost certainly from fossil fuels.
Imagine trying to live without the following items:

• television
• computer and monitor
• cell phone
• portable music player
• credit cards
• toothbrush
• refrigerator
• plastic wrap
• etc.

It has already begun, poor people getting poorer because economies are shifting away from unsustainable and injurious manufacturing. 20,000 people losing their jobs seems insane right now, but it may seem like nothing ten years from now. Here are some sickening numbers:

"Chinese people use up to 3 billion plastic bags a day and the country has to refine 5 million tonnes (37 million barrels) of crude oil every year to make plastics used for packaging."

I just discovered an anagram of Washington is Was Nothing. Is it all a trick, and George never actually existed? Think about it...

"The bill would use the tax code to target tax increases on a specific industry in a way that will lead to higher energy costs to U.S. consumers and businesses." --The White House

Awesome! That would be the best thing that could happen! It's so frustrating the the White House uses this as a reason not to sign the bill into law. It's nice to see that my very own representative, Jim McDermott, agrees that we need to stop subsidizing oil companies.

The following is a list of rules given to all new members who offer their soul to the Republican Party.

1. The president of the United States shall be treated as a god. You shall not question him ever, as to do so would indicate that you are unpatriotic and probably a terrorist.
2. If the president is a Democrat you shall ignore #1 and do whatever you can to get the president impeached.
3. Taxes are evil. You shall never discuss the fact that taxes pay for education, law enforcement, and many other important things.
4. You shall strictly interpret the Constitution, as long as that strict interpretation lines up with party politics. In other words, ignore the separation of church and state, and really really ignore Amendments #1, 4, 8, and 11. But never ignore the Second Amendment, especially when an NRA executive offers you money.
5. Always remember, if you might lose an argument or for whatever reason might not get your way, be sure to attack the character of the person who is getting his or her way. There does not need to be any bit of truth in the accusation.
6. Fear is your friend, use it often.
7. Gay people are evil. If a Republican is accused of being gay then he probably is, so avoid mentioning him at all costs.
8. Tradition is extremely important, even when the cost of tradition is death or destruction, and even when you're not sure why it's important.
9. God gave humans the planet to do with as they please, so use as much fossil fuel as possible while you still can.
10. Generalizations are your friend, be sure to use them all the time.

I hereby profess my love for the Government Accountability Office, known until 2004 as the General Accounting Office.
From Wikipedia:
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) is the audit, evaluation, and investigative arm of the United States Congress. It is located in the Legislative branch of the United States Government.
The GAO was established as the General Accounting Office by the Budget and Accounting Act of 1921 (Pub.L. 67-13, 42 Stat. 20, June 10, 1921). This Act required the head of GAO to "investigate, at the seat of government or elsewhere, all matters relating to the receipt, disbursement, and application of public funds, and shall make to the President...and to Congress...reports (and) recommendations looking to greater economy or efficiency in public expenditures" (Sec. 312(a), 42 Stat. 25). According to GAO's current mission statement, the agency exists to support the Congress in meeting its Constitutional responsibilities and to help improve the performance and ensure the accountability of the federal government for the benefit of the American people. The name was changed in 2004 to better reflect the mission of the office.[1]
The GAO is headed by the Comptroller General of the United States, a professional and non-partisan position in the U.S. Government. The Comptroller General is appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, for a 15-year, non-renewable term. The President selects a nominee from a list of at least three individuals recommended by an 8 member bi-partisan, bicameral commission of congressional leaders. The Comptroller General may not be removed by the President, but only by Congress through impeachment or joint resolution for specific reasons. Since 1921, there have been only 7 Comptrollers General, and no formal attempt has ever been made to remove a Comptroller General. The long tenure of the Comptroller General and the manner of appointment and removal gives GAO a continuity of leadership and independence that is rare within government.

The GAO is probably the only example of a prominent U.S. government office or department that hasn't been visibly under the Bush 43 administration's thumb. The GAO has released report after report detailing the reasons many in the administration should be imprisoned, or at the very least humiliated and run out of the country. In reality I'm thankful that we're not one of those nations where there's a coup every time it becomes obvious the government isn't acting in the interests of the people (or is breaking national and international laws); I think stability is key in a nation of 300 million people with the largest and most powerful government in the world. But if the criminals in our government were put on trial, would the "activist" judges dare to find them guilty? If they were imprisoned, would it send a clear-enough message to leaders of future generations that executive privilege does not mean they can break any laws they want and suffer no consequences?

I'm really starting to grow weary of politicians (Republicans are certainly not the only example) focusing on foreign oil. Isn't it obvious by now that if we're forced into a rough transition from fossil fuels to renewables, some very bad things are going to happen? So why not spend the money we sort of have now on migrating away from all petroleum-based products, transportation, etc., towards renewable resources, rather than waiting till the economy tanks and we can barely afford anything?
There are a few politicians bold enough to speak out against domestic oil as well, one of them being Washington senator Maria Cantwell. Amazingly there are also politicians concerned about the fact that companies like Exxon create more revenue in three months than many nations in an entire year. In fact, Exxon's 2007 profits of $40.6 billion exceeds the 2006 GDP of 123 of 183 nations (the 2007 GDP numbers aren't out yet, but you get the point). I'm not saying insanely high profits are necessarily an indicator of evildoings (if Microsoft never existed humanity probably wouldn't be any closer to destruction or sustainability than we are today), but I am saying that when a corporation makes money by harming the environment, people can't be counted on to put a stop to it, and it'd be nice if the most powerful government in the world took some action for the people. Only problem is, most people don't really care about future generations, particularly while perdition seems so intangible.

From npr.org:

Asked last year whether he would consider being a vice presidential candidate, McCain, a prisoner of war in Vietnam, said:
"You know, I spent all those years in a North Vietnamese prison camp, kept in the dark, fed scraps — why the heck would I want to do that all over again?"

I caucused for my first time today. The place: an elementary school in a fairly WASPy North Seattle neighborhood, in a lunchroom that couldn't pack in half of the attendees. The director of activities: a very large woman with a cheap microphone, who at one point said something like, "I know you generally don't pay attention to the fat blonde girl, but you'll have to listen up." After signing in and offering our first-born up to Obama, we stood around for half an hour while the large woman explained what we had to do. The various precincts moved to other parts of the school, while ours and one other stayed in the lunchroom. During this activity the large woman repeated to the precinct leaders that there were sign-in sheets near her on the stage if they needed more, and at one point somebody covertly grabbed the whole stack, prompting the large woman to say in a very accusatory tone, "I'm not gonna name any names but the person had an Obama sticker on." Shortly thereafter we separated into our camps, and it was instantly clear that the majority was there for Obama. After several counts, a few speeches failing to sway, and some people declaring their candidate of choice on paper because they didn't realize they were supposed to prior to the speeches, the tally ended up in the neighborhood of: 86 for Obama, 15 for Hillary, and 3 undecided. This resulted in 6 delegates for Obama and 1 for Hillary. The seven delegates were chosen by vote after I left.

People in the know have been saying this for years, so I don't understand why it's just now being discussed in popular media: Ethanol is not a solution for replacing diminishing fossil fuel supplies. If politicians continue to let King Corn continue his annexation and destruction of good land, and continue to praise biofuels as part of the long term solution to the coming energy shortage, being able to say I told you so twenty years from now will not be of any consolation. Even liberal estimates say that there's not enough arable land in the world for biofuels to feed the transportation energy needs of the U.S alone.

No, I'm not referring to the Grateful Dead fans of Seattle. I'm referring to the STITA (Sea-Tac airport to Seattle and vice versa) taxi drivers who are not allowed to carry passengers in both directions. Quite ridiculous. I sent an email to askthemayor@seattle.gov and Mayor Nickels actually responded to my question on his show, but his answer was they're "working hard on it." Where's the proof, and why is Seattle lagging behind NYC and Boston, where they have been using hybrid taxis for some time now?

I don't think many people have noticed, probably because the quality of Google's search results has remained so high, but the way Google handles its search input has changed several times over the years. A somewhat recent (and possibly gradual) change was the way that Google now automatically includes various forms of words. For example, a search for the word testing will include the word test, and a search for the word test will include the word tests. It used to be that you had to search for test OR tests if you wanted Google to search for either word. Now if you want Google to exclude variations of a word, you have to use a plus sign or quotes (+test or "test").

One quirky thing that's been going on for years is the way that adding certain words to the search input can lead to a greater number of results. For example, "a search for kabul OR kaboul OR kaboel found [fewer] results than just kabul OR kaboul even though it should have found more." I'm fairly certain I've seen this occur even without the use of the OR.

This post about the future of Google is interesting...

If geeks ruled the world:

1. Professional sports teams, if they existed, would have mascots like the Orcs, the Elves, and the Supernovae. The Giants and the Pirates could keep their names, and possibly the Blue Devils (though due to statistical improbability, Duke would not be allowed to be in the Sweet 16 every year).
2. All surnames would have to be pronounced as they are in their country of origin (e.g. Favre would be Fov-ruh and Mao Tse-Tung would be unpronounceable).
3. Wars would occur between the cybergeeks and the envirogeeks. The weapons would consist of twenty-sided dice and Laser Tag guns.
4. There would be KSL programs (Klingon as a Second Language).
5. I would be a very high-ranking officer!

I've been a pescovegetarian (a.k.a. pescatarian, meaning the only fauna I eat is fish/seafood) for around a decade now. Here are the reasons:

1. According to this and many other sources, "There is approximately half a hectare of arable land for each man, woman, and child on Earth. A conventional (meat-based) diet requires one hectare per person. A lacto-ovo (dairy and eggs included) vegetarian diet requires half a hectare per person. ...An animal-centred diet is not only inefficient in land use, it is also highly wasteful of fossil fuels, water, pesticides, and fertiliser and top soil. Production of a kilo of wheat typically requires 220 litres of water, whereas the production of a kilo of beef is likely to require 20,000-50,000 litres of water. " (Yes, I eat eggs and dairy.) The point being, meat consumption is unsustainable as long as the population is so high. Well actually fish consumption is also unsustainable at current levels, but I need the protein.
2. This goes hand in hand with #1: Pollution. "Agriculture is the single greatest source of water pollution in the country." And water isn't the only thing that gets polluted.
3. Disease. "Indiscriminate use of antibiotics may select for drug-resistant pathogens that can affect both human and non-human animals." In other words, it's a miracle we haven't had a major outbreak of some currently untreatable disease.
4. To bother my mother and my girlfriend, since my favorite sentence is "Don't you want to start eating chicken again?"