Magic Is Misdirection

It is generally understood by most people that the effects in the performance are accomplished through sleight of hand (also called prestidigitation or léger de main), misdirection, deception, collusion with a member of the audience, apparatus with secret mechanisms, mirrors, and other trickery (hence the illusions are commonly referred to as "tricks"). The performer seeks to present an effect so clever and skillful that the audience cannot believe their eyes, and cannot think of the explanation. The sense of bafflement is part of the entertainment. In turn, the audience play a role in which they agree to be entertained by something they know to be a deception. Houdini also gained the trust of his audiences by using his knowledge of illusions to debunk charlatans, a tradition continued by magicians such as James Randi, P. C. Sorcar, and Penn and Teller.

Wikipedia,Magic (Illusion)

As someone who has worked in the electric utility field for quite some time now, I think I have a pretty fair handle on how the system really works. (As opposed to the people who purport to be able to produce something from nothing.) While I applaud the folks who are trying to bring a viable electric car to the market, I am professionally appalled at the misdirection involved. For example:

LOS ANGELES – It's safe to say Jeremy Snyder gets a charge out of the two-seat Tesla Roadster whenever he pulls one off the lot — and not because it's equipped with an all-electric engine. 
 
As he pulled one of the sleek new automobiles down a side street Thursday and put the pedal to the metal, its lithium-ion battery-powered engine didn't give off sparks. It just emitted a powerful hum, something like a much quieter version of a jet taking off.

"Accelerate pretty good?" asked Snyder, head of client services for Tesla, who knew the answer.

"I call it a turbine sound," he said of the sound. "Because it's an electric motor it's got 100 percent torque all the time. So it just pulls you like when you're taking off in an airplane."

After several years of development, the Roadster — with sleek lines like a Ferrari or Porsche and a sticker price of $109,000 — officially moves from the drawing boards to the market next week when Tesla's first store opens. It's near the University of California, Los Angeles, in the city's toney Westwood neighborhood where Beverly Hills, Brentwood and Hollywood practically intersect.

"Because it's Hollywood and glamorous, this is the flagship store," Snyder said.

The next store is to open in a couple months near Tesla's headquarters in the Silicon Valley city of San Carlos, where the car was developed with venture capital of more than $40 million from such investors as Google Inc. founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. More stores are planned for Chicago, New York and other cities by early next year.

Although a fully loaded model can set a buyer back as much as $124,000, that's still cheap compared with a high-end Ferrari. And its 6,831-cell lithium-ion battery pack gives off no emissions. (Emphasis added)

Factually correct yet completely misleading. The car itself may give off no tailpipe emissions, but the electricity that is required to charge it comes from somewhere. That somewhere is probably a fossil fuel burning facility. The amount of emission has not been eliminated, it has merely been shifted elsewhere.

Regardless of the source of the power, it still takes x amount of power to drive a car y miles. That power must come from somewhere. Given the physically-limited nature of the power supply (physically limited by nature of the laws of physics, mind you) the electric car is not a magic bullet that will end emissions.

The End Of The World As We Know It

And Britain's Labor party does not feel fine. Gordon Brown's Labor party has suffered a stunning defeat in Britain. More importantly, Red Ken Livingstone is – or soon will be – gainfully unemployed. It has been a terrible day for Labor in local elections.

Boris Johnson capped a cataclysmic day for Labour by seizing power in London last night, and left Gordon Brown facing a desperate fight for survival.

The Old Etonian handed David Cameron a stunning political triumph by ousting veteran mayor Ken Livingstone.

Mr Johnson won with 1,168,738 first and second preference votes, compared with Mr Livingstone's 1,028,966 on a record turnout.

The new Mayor promised to make London "greater still" and finished his acceptance speech by saying: "Let's get cracking tomorrow – let's have a drink tonight."

Shortly after winning the Mayoral contest Mr Johnson announced he would be standing down as Conservative MP for Henley, triggering a by-election.

Mr Livingstone said he took full responsibility for his defeat and paid tribute to the Labour Party, including Gordon Brown, for the support he had been given.

Labor lost by something like 20 percent – an electoral disaster. In fact, it is a forty year low for Labor. Gordon Brown is now facing the stirrings of revolt in his own party as a result of this debacle.

(Amazingly Enough) Pop Culture Can Be Worthy Of Study

First the news from Britain: Britain's Brown punished in local elections

Britain's ruling Labour Party suffered its worst local election defeat on record on Friday, forcing Prime Minister Gordon Brown to rethink his strategy to avoid losing the next national election.

Labour was braced for an even bigger drubbing as pundits and even government ministers predicted the party would lose the prized London mayoral post to a resurgent opposition Conservative Party. The result is expected late on Friday. [ed. Labour did lose the mayoral office as well.] 

Contrite Labour ministers and lawmakers said the government had failed to address Britons' fears of rising food and energy prices, higher mortgages and a possible housing market slump.

The question now is whether Labour can recover before the next general election, due by mid-2010 at the latest, or whether the tide has turned towards the Conservatives. [emphasis mine.]

I was wondering just this back in January.

Come May it will have been 11 years of Labour party rule in the UK. It has been a good run for Labour even if they haven't yet matched the 18 year run of the Tories before them. But I wonder if the inevitable cracks are beginning to show.

What prompted my musing on UK politics?  Well, I had picked up a CD by an English group called The Holloways, and after listening to it I came to the conclusion that Labour's ascendancy might be coming to an end.  A little far fetched you say?  Well, the experts were not predicting the disaster that was this round of UK elections for Labour using more traditional methods.  So, I say don't knock what works!

Barack Obama, Leftist

Says who? Says Pew: Obama's Image Slips, His Lead Over Clinton Disappears

McCain Seen as More Centrist For his part, McCain runs better in the general election tests against both Democratic candidates among college graduates and white men. More generally, the current poll finds that McCain's competitiveness against both Democrats is buttressed by the fact that voters continue to see him as a centrist whose views are fairly close to their own, and less conservative than George W. Bush's. In contrast, voters place both Clinton and Obama considerably to the left of where they place themselves. These ideological perceptions of the candidates have changed little over the past three months.

Count me as unsurprised.

Although I did think Obama might have been able to convince more people that Clinton was to the left of him. I don't think she is to the left of Obama, but for a good long while, until the last few weeks really, the press has tried to portray Obama as some sort of centrist. Not very many people seem to be buying that fairy tale.

We ain't as dumb as we look! Who knew? (Gleaned from American Future.)