By Donal on Mon, 06/18/2012 - 11:58am | Technology
In response to a The Truth About Cars article on the Volt, one commenter, then two, claimed that Leaf sales have fallen flat while the Volt is selling comparatively well. To my eyes, the Leaf is as sound a car as the Volt, so I wondered if range anxiety was keeping buyers away from the EV.
Leaf sales have dropped the past two months, trailing General Motors Co. (GM)’s rechargeable Chevrolet Volt and Toyota Motor Corp. (7203)’s plug-in Prius in May. Volt deliveries more than tripled to 1,680 units in May, while Leaf sales fell 55 percent to 510. The Leaf is made in a single plant in Japan.
“We’ve had to fulfill demand from one plant globally,” Krueger said. “Once we localize it in December, the second half of the fiscal year is when we’ll see most of the supply, demand be available.”
Actually, I don't mean brilliant politics here. It may be. But I really mean brilliant ethics. There is no doubt in my mind that people who came to the United States as children, who were raised here and work here and who consider this their culture, not should be allowed to stay.
On June 19 ("Juneteenth"), 1865, Union general Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston and issued General Order Number 3, which read in part, "The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor." The tidings of freedom reached the approximately 250,000 slaves in Texas gradually as individual plantation owners informed their bondsmen over the months following the end of the war. The news elicited an array of personal celebrations, some of which have been described in The Slave Narratives of Texas (1974). The first broader celebrations of Juneteenth were used as political rallies and to teach freed slaves about their voting rights. Within a short time, however, Juneteenth was marked by festivities throughout the state, some of which were organized by official Juneteenth committees. Slaveholders in Texas had been able to keep the news of Emancipation from their slaves until 1865. There was a period during the Civil Rights era of the 1960s when the celebrations fell out of favor.
By Doctor Cleveland on Sun, 06/17/2012 - 9:15am | Politics, Business
I'm out of the country right now, but even so I can't avoid the uproar over Teresa Sullivan being pushed out as President of the University of Virginia after only two years.
Funny day in Op-Ed land. David Brooks veers hard right to try to explain why Republicans have veered hard right. His line is, "This is the source of Republican extremism: the conviction that the governing model is obsolete. It needs replacing."
In the petty police state of Michigan (used to be Michigan, My Michigan; now it isn't) two state reps got a time out yesterday for talking naughty during a pre-vote session on some fancy new man-made anti-abortion bills. These two elected representatives of the people were told they could not speak for an entire day because they "ignored the rules of decorum" and got a little huffy with the menfolks.
It has always been a no-brainer to me that Lance Armstrong used performance-enhancing drugs. The world of cycling is dominated by PEDs and has been for a long time. The idea that a guy who heroically recovered from cancer of the everything came back and completely dominated fields full of guys who cheated while not cheating himself is unreasonable. In 2009, I wrote this:
The junior senator from New York proposes to increase food stamp spending even more than the current growth that we've seen, explaining, quote, food stamps are an extraordinary investment because every dollar that you put into the SNAP program, the food stamp program, you get out $1.71, close quote," Sessions said in a Senate floor speech.
He was referring to estimates touted by the Agriculture Department and Moody's economist Mark Zandi, who say that helping people feed themselves serves to stimulate a bad economy because the money goes to grocery stores, delivery companies and farmers, who in turn spend it back into the economy.
But Sessions mocked the idea, arguing that it would lead only to more spending.
"Under this reasoning, we ought to increase the food stamp program 10 times," Sessions said with incredulity. "Why not? We're going to get more money back. Somehow it's going to create more stimulus, and it's going to bring in more money for the treasury and make the economy grow. Why don't we just pay for your clothes, pay for your shoes, pay for your housing?"
He then suggested it would be immoral to follow that line of logic.
His column today is about columns. Well, it starts off about monument designs and why they stink now. Seriously, who really sees the relative decline of monument esthetics as emblematic of what's wrong with America today? The music used to be better, too, David. Maybe that's the problem? Or maybe you're just wrong?
By Donal on Sun, 06/10/2012 - 2:52pm | Business, Technology
With the same quote as Detroit News, HybridCars also suspects that Mitt Romney would be no friend to EVs:
The Obama administration has also been a major champion for plug-in electric vehicles and hybrids. It has pushed for even higher plug-in vehicle subsidies and incentives on the supply side and consumer demand side of the equation to get the fledgling industry flying on its own. Those plus CAFE requirements – not to mention European legislation beyond the purview of the American president – are expected to be key motivation in developing more electrified automotive solutions in coming years, but Romney said he sees failure written on the EV wall already.
The Obama-led government is, Romney said, trying to "to force a market to adopt a technology that people aren't interested in."
Bernstein and Woodward have a very good retrospective of Nixon and Watergate in the Washington Post. For most here - those much younger than I - the whole era is but a small chapter in history. However I believe it is good to reflect on how close the country came to not only a constitutional crisis but a total break down in our democratic form of government.
I admit that, years ago, I was entranced by what Jeremy Rifkin called "The European Dream," which was not just a monetary union but, in his mind, a political union that could, unlike the United States, expand almost without limit to include an ever widening periphery, someday stretching as far south as northern Africa.
We've all seem them. The iconic scenes of the train wreck or car wreck with the cars hanging off a cliff. Nobody dares move else they cause the whole thing to plummet into the abyss below.
With my plantar muscles feeling better, I've been running a two mile route past a few apartment complexes and through a new development of 3,000 SF single family houses—perhaps 300 of them. A sign indicates that they sell in the $500,000s, but asking prices actually range from $544,990 to $619,990. There are no full-grown trees yet, but down in the hollows are hundreds of saplings tied to stakes and protected from deer with plastic netting. Once grown they should buffer the community from the main thoroughfare. There are a few more houses complete every time I run through, a few more families settled in, a few more kids riding bikes and scooters on the sidewalks. One owner has added, or opted for, a full complement of photovoltaic panels on his South-facing roof.
Back at home I read articles like Real Homes: Small, frugal, and green, in which, "Recent college graduate Ella Jenkins lives with her parents while she builds her 103-square-foot home in their yard."
As much as we all sorely wished that the recall effort in Wisconsin would succeed, I don't know many people who were actually shocked when it failed on Tuesday. The odds against winning were formidable.
I'm happy to announce that I've signed a deal for my second book, When the War Began: Teddy Roosevelt, Republican Progressives, and the Birth of Modern Politics.*
It will be published by Palgrave Macmillan in the Spring 2014. Palgrave is a great publisher, and I'm excited about the deal.
I haven't met with my editor yet, but I would like to ask her permission to publish excerpts of my work-in-progress in order to get feedback from all the clever folks at dagblog.
In the meantime, here's a brief description of the book:
Those who follow these issues will have noted with satisfaction that governor Cuomo is now pushing a modification of the marijuana laws in the state of New York.
At present, possession of 25 grams or less of marijuana is not a crime but an "infraction", involving not processing through the criminal justice system, but payment of a fine.
"Open display" of marijuana on the other hand, is a misdemeanor which will lead to the arrest of the offender.
With my plantar muscles feeling better, I've been running a two mile route past a few apartment complexes and through a new development of 3,000 SF single family houses—perhaps 300 of them. A sign indicates that they sell in the $500,000s, but asking prices actually range from $544,990 to $619,990. There are no full-grown trees yet, but down in the hollows are hundreds of saplings tied to stakes and protected from deer with plastic netting. Once grown they should buffer the community from the main thoroughfare. There are a few more houses complete every time I run through, a few more families settled in, a few more kids riding bikes and scooters on the sidewalks. One owner has added, or opted for, a full complement of photovoltaic panels on his South-facing roof.
