Here's an update on Al Gore's energy use since his hand was called on it a year ago. There's nothing I hate more than a hypocrite. Just more of the "do as I say not as I do" from Al. Instead of fawning over his every word why doesn't the mainstream media call his hand on the hypocrisy? Yeah, Al is back on my shit list for his latest pontifications. He's headed for Jimmy Carter territory. Rare air, indeed.
Oil prices dropped below $130 a barrel this week (but is up some today). Today I saw some local gasoline prices drop (but not much) for the first time in memory. Isn't it interesting that the price of gasoline rises faster than it falls? Happens all the time. When you can do it and get away with it without penalty of lost business, well frankly. that's just good business. And it's a lot easier to do with a product like gasoline that doesn't have substitutes. I don't think we are going to see the price of oil drop significantly but I think it will continue to decline over time.
This is some good news on the nuclear power front. That announcement made me wonder how many other applications have been made with the NRC so I checked. Looks like there's already been thirteen applications made in 2008 versus five in all of 2007. Now if we can just get Al to hold down his kilowatt usage a little...
Certainly that is good news for all air travelers. But it was twelve years ago today that TWA flight 800 went down. Why did it take twelve long years for government agencies to require this?
I think I know the answer to that question. As one might expect It's for a combination of reasons but I think the primary one is government inefficiency and bureaucracy and perhaps a little in-fighting thrown in. As the article indicates the NTSB determined ignition in the fuel tanks as the cause of the accident not long after it happened. Then the FBI got involved because of terror suspicions. I can envision the turf battle that went on from there. And finally the airlines balked because of the estimated expense. All that put together pretty much makes a perfect storm of delays. As my Grandma Jackson used to say, "pitiful, just pitiful".
Meanwhile on the energy front Tennessee favorite son Al Gore says the energy crisis threatens U.S. survival. I certainly agree with that. And let's hope the changes the former Veep has made has reduced his usage since this February 2007 report when his average electric bill was $1359 and average natural gas bill was $1,080. Memo to Al: you're more believable when do what you ask everyone else to do.
Meanwhile, I find it interesting that our elected officials continue to be clueless as their approval hits a record-low 14%. In Gallup's words, "the current reading is the lowest congressional job approval rating in the 34-year Gallup Poll history of asking the question." Of course Dirty Harry Reid knows why--see News From All Around post below. Give me a break...
Oh, I almost forgot. For some strange reason all my posts this month had a font change yesterday. I haven't the slightest clue why and I can't get them to match all the earlier posts on this blog. Probably the gremlins again. Or maybe Dirty Harry. Bastards.
I'm done. That's my rants for the day. I told you I would be brief.
Update: Again with the font. I find out who's doing this and I sic Nancy Grace on your butt.
The early estimate of 2000 jobs at Volkswagen Tennessee might be exceeded by the many
jobs associated with suppliers to the new plant. In the just in time
world of the automotive industry that typically means suppliers are located
close to their customer and in this case that means suppliers will be locating
plants in north Georgia or Tennessee cities nearby.
So Tennessee has the distinction of being the North American home of Nissan, Saturn and now
Volkswagen. But given GM's troubles I'm not sure how long Saturn is going
to be around. In typical GM fashion that division has strayed well away
from its original plan of being autonomous and innovative. GM bureaucracy is an efficient killer of innovation
as Anton Chigurh was of people in No Country for Old Men.
After initially producing only small pickups (known as Tennessee Cadillacs by the natives) at it's plant in Smyrna Nissan now produces Altimas, Maximas, and SUVs there as well as pickups. As a result they appear to be holding their own after twenty five years.
I certainly hope Volkswagen management is smart enough to make a
fuel-efficient vehicle at the new plant. Anything other than that simply won’t sell in the world of four dollar a
gallon gasoline. By the time the plant comes on line I expect gasoline might be ten dollars a gallon. Unfortunately, with the
exception of Japanese car companies, most automotive companies aren’t exactly
know for being progressive or innovative.
In any event the Volkswagen announcement in today's economic climate is equivalent to walking into air-conditioning after a hot, humid day outside. I for one say willkommen.
1. From NEWS of the WEIRD: Jorge Espinal, 44, was taken
to a hospital in Fort Worth, Texas, in May after an early-morning
incident in which he used a loaded handgun to
scratch a hard-to-reach itch on his back and accidentally shot himself. Hmm. The chances of alcohol or other intoxicants being involved? I'd say about 100%. But maybe he could run for Congress...
2. It's hard to believe but Congress actually has lower approval ratings than President Bush. I wholeheartedly agree. Both have low ratings since Bush's economy is in the pits and Congress is dysfunctional. But just to prove how out of touch Congress is with reality, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says it's the President's fault that Congress has low approval ratings. Hmm. Why does the movie Dumb and Dumber come to mind?
3. And speaking of dumber: Travis Henry tests positive again. Former Tennessee Vol and Titan Henry, who away from the football field has managed to father nine kids by nine different women, forfeited the rest of his five year, 22.5 million dollar contract when the Broncos cut him this spring. Duh...
4. But back to our Congressional wienies. The New Hampshire Union-Leader has a novel solution that I sort of like. Except I think we need to send both the GOP and Democrats to a basic economics class.
5. Meanwhile I still like this plan. At the very least it's showing leadership that doesn't exist anywhere else on the national level. Let's get the movement going.
There was a milestone in my family over the weekend. My aunt Ruby passed away Friday night at the age of eighty-two.
My aunt Ruby was my mother's youngest sister and she was the last surviving member of the eleven children of the Jackson family. She was preceded in death by my uncles Bill, Bud and Orvey and my aunts Grace, Bess, Blanche, and Gladys. My mother also had two other brothers and one sister that died before I was born and therefore I never knew them. The long marriage between Rachel and Will Jackson, my grandmother and grandfather, produced those eleven children. Counting all the spouses there is now only one member left of that large family. That would be my father.
Growing up in that extended family was unique. One would think that the size of it wouldn't make it a close family but instead it was very close. All the aunts and uncles watched out for the others kids. I could not get into anything I should not have been doing without my mother knowing in hours, if not minutes. And it was vice-versa for my cousins.
The families socialized together with summer cookouts being the primary method, often at our house. Any cousin that found himself at another cousin's house would be fed and treated literally as if that house were his own home. All the kids were held to high scholastic and character standards and those standards were reinforced by each other's aunts and uncles. It's accurate to say that the man I am today is due to the influence of that extended family. My father's family was much smaller and lived out-of-state for the most part and had minimum influence on me.
With the death of my aunt Ruby I know an era has passed. I don't think that it can be replicated. I talked with my father at the funeral home about that last night and I think that he finds it somewhat amazing to be the last survivor of that family. I do too. It seems like just yesterday that the families were full of life. I'm sad about that but I know life cannot remain the same. I know my aunt Ruby is happy though because she's now reunited with her family and she looked forward to that. She was close to my mother. She'll be even closer now. God bless her and my mother. God bless that family.
Coinciding with that date is the need to renew my Tennessee driver's license. Tennessee renews driver licenses every five years on your birthday so I made a trip to my local Department of Safety yesterday. I could have done it on line but I'm vain enough that I wanted a new picture and that required a visit to TDOS and $19.50. It was an interesting experience to dive into state bureaucracy again. Tennessee doesn't have a state income tax so unless I cross paths with a THP trooper, god forbid, I usually don't have much contact with the state.
The local DOS is located on the same route as my commute so I left work a little early yesterday and made the stop. I walked in the door to be greeted with a crowd of twenty or twenty-five people and maybe eight to ten workers. The two guys in front of me in line for the receptionist were apparently trying to get their licenses reinstated and both ended up in long bureaucratic type discussions with her. When I finally made it to her desk I told her I needed a renewal and handed her the appropriate documents. From the look of relief on her face renewals must be the easiest thing she deals with. She handed me a computer generated ticket with the number A114. That ticket had a time stamp and also stated there were six people in front of me in the same category which I assumed meant a simple renewal.
So I made my way to the waiting area where at least twenty people sat on institutional type plastic chairs. That and the sickly green walls badly in need of painting reminded me vaguely of the office scenery I often see in Mad Men on AMC. In fact the room made me felt like I was back in the sixties.
I found most interesting the signs posted throughout. "NO SMOKING IN THIS BUILDING" in giant black letters on a white background. Then another with "SMOKING NOT PERMITTED WITHIN FIFTY FEET OF THIS BUILDING". I don't know what that was about unless they didn't want to pick up the butts. Or maybe they stored propane there, who knows. A quick glance out of the window showed some smokers were obeying it though, even in a steady rain.
Another sign said "DISORDERLY CONDUCT IS NOT TOLERATED IN THIS BUILDING". OK, I was glad they posted that one. I don't know about you but the last thing I want when I'm waiting on a license renewal is to have some bozo displaying disorderly conduct. I guarantee anyone doing that would smoke within fifty feet of the building too. Bastards.
Yet another sign in big black letters said "FOOD AND BEVERAGES ARE PROHIBITED". And another "WAIT UNTIL YOUR NUMBER IS CALLED BEFORE APPROACHING STATION". That irritated me because I was planning on going when they called A112 instead of my A114. And the announcement of those numbers...it was a prerecorded female voice that sounded a lot like the one in the underground trains at the Atlanta airport. In fact I think it was the same one. Eerie. Kind of reminds me of old James Bond movies: "ten minutes and counting" on Dr. No's island.
But back to the signs--clearly someone in charge at this building had control issues. Why is it that the more mundane the task, e.g, driver's license renewal, the more control signs you see. It's like the reverse of Heat-Moon's theory about restaurants--the more calendars on the wall the better the food.
Anyway, forty-five minutes later I've got my new Tennessee DL. Sadly it's exactly the same format as I carried for five years previous. But the new one has a picture of a guy with lighter hair. And less hair. Somebody ought to put a sign up about that. Like 'NO PICTURES TAKEN AFTER AGE 55".
For a few years now I've noticed that I don't seem to concentrate as well as I used to. It's been particularly so when I read books, play golf, and sometimes even watching movies. My mind just seems to wander and I can't stay focused on the task at hand. For many years I would read at least one book a week. Unless it's an extraordinary book now I probably don't average one book a month.
I first attributed it to the aging process but as time has gone by I actually began to think it might be related to the way I read things on the net or watch television--basically just snippets of information done rapidly and then it's on to something else. Now this article from The Atlantic suggests the same.
It's a good read (if you can stay with it) and my non-scientific thought is that there really is something to the theory that using the Internet, text messaging, television text crawlers, etc is not just changing the way we read but also the way we think. Scary to think about. But I think it just might be true.
I'm not usually an optimist about things these days in the business world but I actually have some optimism about the surge in oil and gas prices.
First I'm not convinced at this point that current pricing is a true reflection of supply and demand. I think some panic buying, or maybe speculative buying, has pushed the price up to the current level. If I'm right about that then at some point that price bubble will burst and cause the price to drop. How much and when I haven't a clue.
But if you're a believer in a free market, and I am, then we're seeing real pricing of oil and gasoline. And I think that real pricing is going to drive consumer spending changes--mainly in the amount and way we drive and with what type vehicles. In other words a cultural change will occur and that change will drive down American demand for oil. I haven't a clue about other country's situations but I believe this will definitely occur in the U.S. and probably is already occurring to some degree.
Further I believe that will change us long term to a more frugal oil-driven economy like what has already occurred in Europe. The Professor had some first-hand experience with that just yesterday. There's going to be a lot of short term pain but I think that's going to help us in the long run. Economics has some similarities to Newton's Law in that respect. I just wouldn't say it is an equal reaction but it's certainly an opposite one.
Then if American business and government can get together with incentives on solar, wind, and nuclear power on top of the cultural shift in our driving then we can really make some headway toward becoming less dependent on foreign energy. I'm rarely in agreement with billionaires like T. Boone Pickens but I'm mostly in agreement with him on this issue. His critics say he's too ambitious and just greedy. I can't make an argument against the latter. He's clearly in it to make money but as for as his being too ambitious they said that about American's landing on the moon in the sixties. We did it and we can do that or anything else we set our mind too.
The key is the federal government. Our leaders in Congress and the oval office have to set the goals and remove obstacles, particularly regulatory and financial ones. If I have any pessimism about any of this it would be in that area. I'm worried we don't have any leadership in that respect. But for now, I'm still optimistic. It's time for them to step forward...
Fantastic weekend. How could it be anything but with three days off in a row.
I find myself again looking forward to and really enjoying my days off. They have once again become something special. From October through December when I wasn't working every day was an off day and I treated it accordingly. Nothing special about any day in that situation. In fact I had trouble keeping up with what day of the week it was. Every day ran into another.
Now on my off days I'm usually awakened by the sun around five thirty. I'll doze off and on until the light finally is too much. Usually that's around seven a.m. I get up then and make a pot of coffee, take a leisurely stroll to the mailbox for the morning newspaper and by the time I get back the coffee is almost done. I just had a visualization as I write this of me in a bathrobe walking to the mailbox looking just like Tony Soprano. Thankfully I don't own a bathrobe and neither do I run a garbage company. Or whack anybody. At least not on a regular basis.
Anyway I'll get my coffee and flip on CNN or Fox News and make a leisurely stroll through the local paper with national news playing on the tube in the background. Sometimes I'll turn the volume up if there's an interesting story but most of the time it's just white noise for me. Depending on Mrs. Medlock's day and whether she gets up or not I may sit there an hour or more drinking coffee and just vegetating. Nothing special on my mind and no hard thinking. Just relaxation. It's surprising to me how much that simple act of doing nothing energizes me. It's not the same high I feel after a gym workout and it's not any better or worse than that. It just feels good afterward.
I think keeping things simple is one of the keys to life. And I think it's true in every part of life from your career to your kids, to your love life, etc. I really tried hard to keep things simple when I worked in business. The business world analyzes and manages things ad nauseam. It's what managers do. And it wears everybody down.
It's just a fact that we all live a very complicated existence these days. Nobody has time to sit awhile but we all need to. I like my morning times on my off days. Coffee, the newspaper and me.
