Subject to Change

I drove a Ford Focus last week for work. When I was returning it a sticker in the window caught my eye. It advertised that this was a “Partial Zero Emission Vehicle.” Is that like being a little bit pregnant? I couldn’t imagine what that’s supposed to mean, so I had to Wiki it:

PZEVs have their own administrative category within the state of California for low emission vehicles.

This vehicle category was created as part of a bargain with the California Air Resources Board (CARB), so that the automobile manufacturers could postpone producing mandated zero emission vehicles (ZEVs), which will require the production of electric vehicles or hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.

…

In order to qualify as a PZEV, a vehicle must meet the SULEV standard and, in addition, have zero evaporative emissions from its fuel system plus an extended (15-year/150,000-mile) warranty on its emission-control components, which incidentally covers the propulsion electrical components of a hybrid electric vehicle.

So, PZEV is California’s hat-tip to reality. Automakers couldn’t achieve the state’s insane emission standards and Californians didn’t feel like walking everywhere. It’s to bad, really. They might not babble on so much if they were all out of breath. Rather than admit defeat, California decided to change the rules. Technically, there’s compliance… Technically.

Some people want to put government in charge of health care and this demonstrates exactly why that’s a bad idea. Can you imagine getting a “Partial Organ Transplant” for your “Localized Cancerous Anomaly?” If you stop to think about it, this is already happening! Who, exactly, is the term “Partial Birth Abortion” supposed to fool anyway?

I’ve been hearing about new wattage light bulbs, but I haven’t seen them yet. The rumor is that the standard sizes like 40 Watt and 60 Watt are being replaced by 37 and 52 Watt sizes, or something similar.

At first this sounded like a horrible idea to me, because on the surface it seems like a lame attempt to do more social engineering. Then I realized that it could be something else entirely. What if this is some way for the light bulb manufacturers to skirt or delay the new regulations on incandescent light bulbs? If I remember correctly the phase out is staged by wattage, with higher watt bulbs being taken off the market first.

So, by law you may not be able to get your 100 watt bulb in the future. But you’ll still have the 92 watt (or whatever) to fall back on, at least for a few years. If that’s the motivation, I applaud the effort by manufacturers to keep us all well lit!

Michael Mathias doesn’t like seeing Donald Driver pitching McDonalds. He says that Driver is promoting unhealthy eating habits, and shouldn’t be encouraging our children to eat junk.

The trouble is, we’re going to need fat kids, and lots of them. They’re going to fuel the environmental revolution! If this boat completes its mission, we’re all going to have to bulk up for Mother Earth. The boat is powered by human fat, which is carbon free.

With technology like this on the horizon, government sponsored fat farms and BMI mandates can’t be far off. Just picture all the happy little fat people, being harvested for the good of the planet… It’ll be beautiful.

Donald Driver is a visionary, worthy of the Nobel Prize for… Oh, I dunno… Physics?

Why not give him a Grammy, too?

P.S. Soylent unleaded is people!

On Friday Jeff Wagner talked about a proposal to curb violence on TV. The idea is to have congress mandate cable ala-carte, which would allow consumers to order individual channels rather than bundled packages. The topic got cut tragically short. Yours truly was the last caller on the subject!

My comment to Jeff was that the V-Chip was supposed to be the answer to inappropriate television. It was a government mandate. In order to pass this new mandate, we’d have to admit that the first government mandate failed. I’m certain that Jeff’s audience recognized the foolishness of chasing one government mistake with another. I also commented that I have no intention of using my V-Chip unless I discover that my son is developing bad TV habits. The point of the comment was to say that I plan to raise my child in such a way that I don’t wonder or worry about what he’s watching on TV.

Later on, I was reflecting on the topic again. This time, I realized something about the concept of charging by the channel. Of course, the public will be sold on the idea that this will help lower cable prices. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the only way to lower your cable prices is to cancel service.

Cable companies have resisted cable ala-carte for as long as I can remember. They’re either stupid or lazy. After the initial investment that restructuring will require, they’ll be making a mint! People will think they’re saving money by selecting only the channels they watch, and most of them won’t even realize they’d be getting a better deal with bundled channels. To prove it to yourself, you need only look at the cell phone market.

Cell phones used to come with games on them. Just try and find that now. You have to buy games now! You can also buy ringtones, and other applications. Most people with cell phones (and cable) have disposable income, and they love to spend it recklessly. The best way to sneak it out from under them is to do it a dollar at a time, and bill them for it later.

Apply this to cable. Basic bundles run in the tens of dollars ($40-50) . Gee, Wally, I can order 90 channels for $50 or I can buy them for a dollar each. What should I do?

If you don’t see the opportunity here, calculate how many channels the cable company needs to sell you at $5 per month in order to exceed their package price. I don’t think they’d have a hard time selling channels a five bucks a pop, either. Then, they just need to sit back and let you get sick of watching The History Channel, Animal Planet, Discover Channel, and Comedy Central. Or, they can make limited time offers for the Disney Channel. You’ll gladly pay a dollar for six months and forget to cancel later on. You’re getting a great deal, right?

There’s no government mandate needed here. Sooner or later the cable companies will figure this out. Until then, we’re all better off anyway.

From BrainyHistory

1823 R. J. Tyers patents roller skates

1864 U.S. mints 2 cent coin. 1st appearance of “In God We Trust”

1914 Mexico ends diplomatic relations with U.S.

1952 1st atomic explosion on network news: Nob, Nevada

1955 Congress orders all U.S. coins bear motto “In God We Trust”

1969 1st human eye transplant performed

1970 1st Earth Day held internationally to conserve natural resources

1983 Great Britain performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site (Don’t the Brits have something they can nuke at home?)

1989 Nolan Ryan strikes out his 5,000th batter

1991 Johnny Carson announces he will retire next year from Tonight Show

1992 6.0 earthquake in California

1992 Holocaust Museum dedicated in Washington D.C.

2000 Elian Gonzalez is snatched by a SWAT team from his Florida relatives to return him to his father in Cuba (April is a bad month for Janet Reno)

There’s a discussion going on at Boots and Sabers, over what makes an appropriate practice target at a shooting range.

For once, people are agreeing with my point. Basically it’s this:

You should practice on an appropriately shaped target. It helps to train your muscles. You learn how good aim feels. You should not, however, use an image of a specific target (like Osama Bin Laden) because you’re training your brain for something other than self defense.

I work in a highly computerized industry. My aunt is also in the technology sector. We were sarcastically predicting the impact that this earlier Daylight Saving Time change is going to have.

We started with the doomsday scenarios. I’ve actually programmed industrial equipment. There is no such thing as automatic updates for most automated machines. With my grandmother in the ICU, I’m hoping that someone has thought about all the installed base.

Of course we’ve already gone through all this once before, with the original Y2K. And, I’m certain that every year experiences some small hiccups as the clock takes a leap forward and back. What’s interesting to me is the amount of time and money spent on dealing with this silly act of congress. Was it really worth it?

I’ve gotten notifications at work about how to upgrade my PC, and more importantly, how to properly schedule a meeting over the next three weeks. Because some computers won’t be patched in time, we’re being asked to double-check our calendars. My aunt said her company is sending out similar emails. It should also be mentioned that our own state legislature had to rush a bill through, in order to be sure that bars would be allowed to stay open longer on the night(s) we change the clocks. In other words, companies and governments are pissing away time and money because of this silly idea.

But what would the ultimate consequence of the new DST be? I hope you’re ready for this: your DVR might not record your shows on time. Think about it, what if your Tivo forgets to set its clock correctly but the scheduling service it uses doesn’t (or vice versa)? Suppose your VCR gets its date/time settings over the air, but something goes wrong.

Do you realize that through no fault of your own, you might miss 24 on Monday night? Imagine the uproar across the country as millions of people miss their Jack Bauer fix. I’m warning you now, check and recheck your DVR! If you don’t you’re letting the terrorists in congress win.

I’ve been waiting for so long to discuss the proposal to ban incandescent light bulbs in California. Now, a New Jersey lawmaker has come up with his own, slightly more sane, proposal.

Banning the incandescent light bulb altogether is an extremely ill-planned idea. While it’s generally accepted that fluorescent bulbs save energy, there is little else to redeem them.

As I’ve mentioned in a previous blog, one could question whether they are truly safer for the environment. Not only do some fluorescent bulbs contain mercury, which would then be dumped into landfills, they have other chemicals in them that incandescents don’t. Fluorescent bulbs contain mercury vapor and phosphor to produce light. Compact fluorescent bulbs have electric circuits built into the base, which contain a number of things you would not want to eat. Compare this to the incandescent bulb, which has a tungsten filament in an inert gas. The base is brass or tin, with plastic and maybe trace amounts of lead (or silver) solder. It’s all relatively safe to play with, in fact some people actually eat incandescent bulbs!

Another promise of the fluorescent bulb is that it’s cheaper, in the long run, to operate. Of course, once California creates a sudden demand of more than 50 million customers this argument will become pointless, as we’ve seen with the impact of ethanol blended gasoline on tortilla prices in Mexico.

Do you need more reasons not to switch all light bulbs to fluorescent?

1) Imagine road crews trying to work under fluorescent lighting? It would be comical, at least. Perhaps California will sell expensive incandescent lighting permits to contractors.

2) Isn’t the light bulb in your microwave incandescent? Your, fridge? That’s alright, you can get fluorescent appliance bulbs. But, are they microwave safe? Do you really need to see your burrito cooking anyway? Oh, no. How many watt fluorescent bulb do I need for my Easy Bake Oven?

3) Fluorescent bulbs in cars? Street lights? Traffic signals? Maybe we could switch them all over to LED? FYI: LEDs contain other nasty chemicals you wouldn’t want to eat.

4) Hey! How come my Lava Lamp stopped working?

5) The heat lamp in my shower takes forever to warm up!

6) What do you mean, I can’t dim a fluorescent bulb? Those bulbs are special? What do they cost.

7) OH MY GOD!!! Will the Centennial Light be switched off???

Also, if California bans incandescent bulbs but overlooks other technologies, like halogen bulbs, they could cause an increase in energy usage as everyone switches to higher wattage and less efficient fixtures.

If this kooky idea catches on and makes its way to our state, you can bet I’ll be taking advantage of it. Like the margarine smugglers of my dad’s childhood, I’ll be gassing up my truck and heading to Illinois to pick up a few thousand watts of incandescent glory for me and all my closest paying customers.

New Berlin West students who were tossed out of a girl’s basketball game on Friday were treated to a pop quiz by the vice principal on Monday. The quiz was true-false style and was intended to teach the students some valuable life lessons, apparently. For example, students were asked to answer these questions:

If I have kids someday, I hope they act exactly like me.

The school is a better place without me.

There may be a time when I grow up and start acting like an adult.

In response, I’d like to submit the following true-false quiz to Vice Principal Krecak. If you’d like to take this quiz yourself you may grade yourself with the answer key provided at the end.

1. Life is always fair.

2. Everybody is equal.

3. Everyone should be treated exactly the same.

4. You can protect everyone’s feelings all the time. Doing so is good for one’s social development.

5. Hurting someone’s feelings is the worst thing you can do to them.

Answer key:

1. FALSE: See King, Martin Luther (death of); Armstrong, Lance (re: cancer); Kerrigan, Nancy (career of); Stewart, Martha (re: liberal media lynching).

2. FALSE: See Einstein, Albert; Hawking, Steven; Schwarzenegger, Arnold; Gates, Bill; Smith, Anna Nicole; Love, Courtney; Spears, Brittany

3. FALSE: If you answered TRUE, explain handicapped parking spaces, W2, and the Special Olympics in under 50 words.

4. FALSE: Many people are jerks. Learning this lesson at a young age will help prevent an individual from becoming to trusting of those who might try to harm them. Examples: lawyers, creditors, landlords, strangers at the mall, bloggers with too much free time.

5. FALSE: If you answered TRUE, use the name George W. Bush in a sentence without using the word “stupid.”