Cannibals

Apropos Rich's post from yesterday about Ted "I Got Mine" Turner. We got cannibals.

Electric Cars And Reality

General Motors today revealed plans to begin testing lithium-ion batteries intended for use in their Chevrolet "Volt" electric cars.

Because of the extreme power demands involved in driving a car in the real world, the vehicle would be powered by lithium-ion batteries. Lithium-ion batteries are lighter and can store and release more power than the nickel-metal hydride batteries used in today's hybrid cars.

Fully charged, the Volt should drive about 40 miles without using any gasoline, according to GM. The small conventional engine would extend that range allowing the car to get as much 150 miles per gallon, depending on the distance driven.

The Volt will be a four-seat car. Not having a center seating position in the back will allow room for the car's battery to run longitudinally down the center of the car while keeping the roof low for better aerodynamics, according to a GM press release. The T-shaped battery will also extend out under the back seats.

"After extensive aerodynamic testing of the Volt, the vehicle now has a coefficient of drag that is 30% lower than the original concept," said Ed Welburn, GM vice president, Global Design. "It's not easy, but it is a necessity."

The Volt concept car was unveiled at the 2007 Detroit Auto Show.

For many Americans, especially those who live in urban areas, this car could work. For those who have to commute long distances, it would not. But there are certainly a goodly number of people who could use something like this and lessen demand for other fuels. But there is - as there always is - a catch. The demand for electricity will grow - rapidly - if large numbers of these cars go into service. The demand for reliable generation of electricty is going to skyrocket. Intermittent supplies will not cut it when people are depending on the power to be there when they need to charge their cars to get to work.

In other words, reliable power plants need to be ready to go on line to meet this demand. The planning had better start very soon. It takes years to build a coal plant, even more to build a nuclear plant. If we do not start very soon, there will be a crunch that will be enormous.  

Woman Bites Dog

The old saying about a man biting a dog is news has to be updated. A woman in Minneapolis bit a pit bull who was attacking the woman's dog. In doing so, she may have saved her dog from the attack.

(Amy) Rice says she bit the pit bull on the nose Friday after trying to pull the dog's jaws off her Labrador retriever, Ella. The dog had jumped a fence to get into Rice's northeast Minneapolis yard, and Rice says she feared the pit bull would kill Ella.

Ella is recovering.  Ms. Rice may need rabies injections, since she drew blood from the pit bull. Personally, I don't know if I would have chosen biting as the way to get the attacking dog's attention, but it obviously worked for her. Good job, Ms. Rice. 

Feedback Loop

Or maybe that should be 'Foodback Loop.' David Ignatius at the Washington Post notes the raging global inflation that is driving the cost of staple foods sky-high globally. The global demand for energy, raw materials and food are creating a nightmare scenario. Food riots may be imminent in some nations.

Bradsher summarizes the evidence that food shortages and inflation are fueling political unrest: "Since January, thousands of troops have been deployed in Pakistan to guard trucks carrying wheat and flour. Protests have erupted in Indonesia over soybean shortages, and China has put price controls on cooking oil, grain, meat, milk and eggs. Food riots have erupted in recent months in Guinea, Mauritania, Mexico, Morocco, Senegal, Uzbekistan and Yemen."

World Bank President Robert Zoellick rang the alarm bell in a speech yesterday. He noted that since 2005, the prices of staples have risen 80 percent. The real price of rice rose to a 19-year high last month, he said, while the real price of wheat hit a 28-year high…..

…..I spoke this week to Richard W. Fisher, the president of the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank and the leading inflation hawk on the Fed's Open Market Committee. He opposed the last two rate cuts, arguing that they could boost inflation without easing the financial mess. Fisher sees the booming Asian economies creating a classic "demand-pull" inflation that is propelled by 3 billion new participants in the global economy who, he says, "want to eat like you, dress like you, live like you."

"We cannot accommodate inflation," argues Fisher. "Once it takes a grip, it changes people's behavior. It's bad for investors, for workers, for savers, for people on fixed incomes."

Yet this global inflation is already beginning to feed into the U.S. economy. Including food and energy, Fisher warns, the Fed's measure of consumer prices was up a "worrisome" 3.7 percent for the 12 months ending in January. And the latest figures from the European Union show that inflation there rose to a 3.5 percent annual rate in March, the highest level since the index was created in 1997.

Not mentioned by Ignatius here is the fact that part of the pressure on global food supplies is a direct result of turning croplands over for biofuel production. There is also the greed driving that phenomenon, but put that aside. There is still a real problem here that will be causing real repercussions for Americans in both the short and the long term. Everything is costing more and that will continue as global demand outstrips supply. In that respect, Ignatius is quite correct. The Fed pumping money into this overheated global economy may be shortsighted and foolish.   

Hanoi Jane Picks A Candidate

Jane Fonda has endorsed - or at least said that she is voting for, Barack Obama. 

Less examined is whether some celebrity endorsements may actually cost a candidate votes. This could be one of those less desirable votes for part of the country, especially if Obama was hoping to attract some crossover Republicans if he's the Democratic candidate come fall.

Obama, who was recently named the most liberal member of the Senate by the nonpartisan National Journal, has sought to portray himself as the earliest anti-Iraq war opponent and tagged his sole remaining opponent, Sen. Hillary Clinton, with voting to authorize the use of force in Iraq.

The problem for those of a certain generation that endured the Vietnam War and the sometimes violent domestic conflict that accompanied it at home is that during Fonda's controversial wartime visit to North Vietnam, she was photographed at a Communist anti-aircraft gun battery.

According to the photo caption distributed at the time, she joined North Vietnamese soldiers there in singing an antiwar song while preparing to shoot at attacking Americans.

Fonda, of course, did so much more than just sit at the battery. She was also part and parcel of the North Vietnamese propaganda machine - a willing participant to that. More importantly, after the POWs began returning, she denied they had been tortured:

During this visit she also visited American prisoners of war (POWs), and brought back messages from them to their families. When cases of torture began to emerge among POWs returning to the United States, Fonda called the returning POWs "hypocrites and liars."[14] She added, "These were not men who had been tortured. These were not men who had been starved. These were not men who had been brainwashed." On the subject of torture in general, Fonda told The New York Times in 1973, "I'm quite sure that there were incidents of torture… but the pilots who were saying it was the policy of the Vietnamese and that it was systematic, I believe that's a lie." Several American POWs and other eyewitnesses, including former POW, and future US Senator and Republican presidential candidate, John McCain, disagree with this sentiment.

Yes, I imagine John McCain does disagree with her assessment. He bears the scars to this day of the torture Hanoi Jane denied. Do I think this will be a huge blow to Obama? No, of course not. Do I believe it will make even a few people more likely not to vote for him? Probably. There are some of us who do remember Hanoi Jane's antics during the war. And we still do not forgive her.