A Polite Suggestion Regarding Monument Avenue

I often stroll on parts of Richmond's Monument Avenue in the Fan to clear my head during the workday. This has become less effective as the monuments themselves have become part of the national conversation on racism.

Let me be clear from the outset: I do no support the monuments.

I grew up in this city. Monument Avenue marked my northern limit for personal exploration as a tween. I was allowed to venture anywhere within the Monument / Boulevard / Main / Belvidere box, though I may have tested those limits from time to time. But because they were my limits, I traveled them extensively. The monuments were very much a part of my cultural knowledge of this city.

As a child they did not bother me. Even as a young adult, I allowed myself to buy into the "part of history" and "culture of the south" (I won't quite venture to "heritage") notions. I even can still allow a romanticized version of history to justify the presence of most: Lee was, after all, not in favor of slavery, but defended Virginia as his personal homeland, and remained a public figure for reasonably good causes after the war; Jeb Stuart died defending the city; even Stonewall Jackson could be viewed as a hero of Virginia, more so than a hero of the South.

But all of that falls apart at the shrine to Jefferson Davis. Jefferson Davis was not a Virginian. He did not die defending Richmond, or Virginia. He argued long after the war that the South should remain defiant, and reading some of his bio information I learned that he was not well liked or even respected by his government, largely ignoring the responsibilities of Head of State to micro-manage the military.

And let's not forget: it's not a monument. It's a SHRINE. It is actually called a shrine. Monuments are erected to remember great men and great events. Shrines are built to worship them.

So the monuments are, at best, problematic. The shrine is inexcusable.

But to super duper complicate everything, Monument Avenue is also a national landmark, so the likelihood of doing anything destructive about it is next to zero. Ever. And while it would be easy to turn the resulting anger toward other statues and monuments in the region, evidently early 20th century racists had a plan for that and actually exhumed and re-interred the remains of A.P. Hill into the base of his statue. Check and mate: Richmond's statues are here to stay.

But that doesn't mean we have to celebrate it. I've mused for some time over ideas of how to deter traffic from the area. Richmond's mayor, Levar Stoney, has expressed support for measures that would diminish the cultural impact of Monument Avenue, so here are a short list of options that would cost next to nothing for the city, and would significantly detract from the foot and vehicle traffic that we force to see our monuments and SHRINES to racism and treason:

• Reduce the speed limit inside I-195 to VCU to 25mph. It's residential!
• Install stop signs at every intersection that does not include a traffic circle. (Push traffic to Broad St)
• Rename the street to Franklin St. That's the name east of Stuart Circle, and while there is a "W Franklin St past Thompson St, that could also be renamed "Old Franklin St".
• Suggest that Henrico County rename their portion to "Franklin St". They have no monuments and no overlapping street names and gain nothing from celebrating Richmond's troubled past.
• STOP HOSTING PUBLIC EVENTS ON MONUMENT AVENUE
• Move the Easter Parade--Byrd Park would be a lovely venue.
• Move the 10K to Broad St
• Eliminate the marathon's turn at the Stonewall Jackson monument
• Allow parking on both sides of the street at all times, not just Sunday

We will not win a war against the statues, but we can at least make them inconvenient.

Maybe I'm getting old

But I'm having a really hard time relating to people who get overly emotional about their politics. I know I used to, and there are things that I still feel very strongly about (in fact, probably most things), but I just don't see the point in getting angry at another human being because they vote differently.

Perhaps if I lived in a country where people were dying for their rights, but I'm not--my forebears already did that for me. They did it to secure a chunk of land where people would be free to disagree and discuss those disagreements civilly. To find common ground. They even wrote a big ol' Constitution guaranteeing our rights to do so, providing an amazingly flexible framework to secure those rights and freedoms for generations to come.

It comes as no surprise to most that I'm generally conservative, at least fiscally. I believe that people will succeed or they will fail. Irrespective of outside influence (i.e., welfare programs), the same people who would have failed on their own will continue to do so with help.

I believe in Capitalism and voting with my dollars.

I also believe in personal freedoms, and here my views (evidently, though I don't understand how) become quite liberal. Leave people alone to make their fortunes, their mistakes, their LIVES. Gay, straight, bi, whatever: live & let live.

But all too often I see real-live grown-ups getting pugilistic over this nonsense. Gay? NOT IN MY BACK YARD! Capitalist? UNFAIR AND I HATE YOU! And in the end Godwin's Law becomes more and more quickly proved: if you don't agree with me, I'll call you a Nazi. Cute.

And what do you say to that? "Yeah? Well you're a Nazi, too!" The argument is stupid, trite, and frankly irrational. And yet I hear it on things that both political spectra believe.

Don't-Ask/Don't-Tell is an amazing example of political ass-hattery. When it was instituted, the Right was up in arms. How dare this crazy liberal president dictate policies on sexual orientation to the military--it'll never work! Now? How dare these crazy conservatives defend the policy--it doesn't work! But...but...I really haven't heard anyone other than the mouthpieces defending the policy. So...we all agree. Right? But why can't we just say, "Hey, we agree: this policy is teh dum"? Is it because that would show weakness in the face of our political adversaries? 'Cause I gotta tell ya: that argument is teh dum.

So I call myself a conservative, right?

But yeah: the Tea Party shit has got to go. Seriously: it's embarrassing. I know there are some good people out there who have similar beliefs to my own, but the Glenn Becks and Sarah Palins of the world really make it look quite silly, as if all conservatives believe only that Obama isn't a citizen, Global Warming isn't real, and evolution is just a fancy myth perpetrated by the left.

The Boston Tea Party was a revolutionary decision that halted trade and had life-or-death consequences. That's why it worked. There was risk. This crap is just a media frenzy, and for all the wrong reasons.

It's lazy political action, like yelling at people on Facebook. If you want to make a difference, quit yelling and start talking.

Free Gov't Money

Let me see if I've got this straight.

The government offers $1B for old cars during a recession. 7 days later, they run out of money as 250,000 new cars are sold.

The government is surprised at this.

Pretty simple, so far, right?

Except how in the blue hell do they act surprised when they say, "Come and get your free cash!" and people take them up on it? Didn't Hawaii learn the same lesson with their free health care for children? Didn't the feds learn the same lesson with the vouchers for analog-TV converters? Henrico County with the cheap iBooks (if you don't recall, that was a stampede that got national media coverage)?

When are you liberals gonna learn that if you offer something for free, people will swarm and swamp it? You want to bitch about Bush's tax refunds, but there was no swarm to deal with--just a cheque. At least with a tax refund, you know right off the bat how much money is going out. It's pre-capped. With this cock-up, Congress is now looking for more money to fulfill their "obligation" to this goofball program.

Oh, but before you get too excited about bilking the feds, make sure your car fits through the myriad caveats and EPA estimations and re-estimations and re-re-estimations of your MPG.

Joe Biden says...

EVERYBODY PANIC!

Way to help stabilize the economy, dude. Nice.

Overheard last night on TV

Most presidents only have 2 or 3 problems to deal with--I have 8.
Politics in Washington are hard.
Everybody's all partisan.
My peepee hurts.

Suck it up, dude. You rode the cult of personality into office, promised moonbeams and kitty whiskers. Don't go whining about how hard it is.

Arlen Specter

So here's what I think should happen. I think any elected official should be allowed to change parties in office, but then be immediately barred from participating in the political process until a special election can be held to determine if the populace continues to support the new platform.

I just want to pinch his cheeks

This Obama character might just win my heart, after all. In his first clear-headed move since taking office, he's agreeing with the Republican chair of the tax committee in saying that the tax code shouldn't be used as a weapon.

Of course he still wants to dig so far up my ass for money that it'll feel like a root-canal, but hey, it's all about baby-steps.

No really: he needs to stop.

I used to work for a man who said, “it’s ok to say in your plan, ‘a miracle happens here’.” He was referring to sweeping changes in the environment that relied on unknowable variables and blind leaps of faith. For example, rolling out a new public program with insufficient funding. You know where you want to go, and you know everything you need to do, but there’s just not enough money to make it happen. You don’t let on to such concerns in your plan, because a miracle has to happen somewhere. But you don’t make a whole project plan around miracles.

I just finished reading about the new federal budget, and it looks like 134 pages of “a miracle happens here”.

We’re going to cut farm subsidies. Yeah, that’s a good idea. Farming isn’t profitable. As the step-son of a farmer, I’ve heard a fair amount about what it takes to get food to your table, and cutting subsidies ain’t gonna help. Farmers lose money on almost everything they do, so the gov’t steps in with crazy ideas like “plant trees over here and we’ll give you $XXX” and “now cut those trees down and we’ll give you $YYY”. Seems like a waste, but those little goofy ideas keep your tomatoes from costing $5 each.

Corporate farming is only successful in an economy of scale, and generally when coupled with research & development, like finding crops that can produce 3 times a year instead of only twice, or developing new species of crops that are more resistant to pests / weather / other environmental conditions. Those corporate interests are also subsidized, although sometimes through round-about means, like partnerships with public colleges.

If the subsidies we’re talking about cutting are for bio-fuel, then I’m all onboard, because the ethanol madness seems to have finally subsided. (Who the hell thought it would be a good idea to cut our corn food crop roughly in half, develop a whole national infrastructure around refining it into an inefficient fuel, and then mandate that we all use it? Oh, wait: Congress)

But Obama just wants to set an arbitrary limit of $500K. If you’re a farmer making more than that, you’re boned. No more subsidies for you! Never mind that just replacing a combine harvester can cost that much. Or that replacing a failed irrigation system can approach those numbers. Hell, a John Deere tractor can cost well over $100K, and they do break every once in a while. So as long as you’re a farmer making over $500K and nothing breaks, you’re fine, I guess.

Then there’s health-care. We’re going to significantly step up funding for what is rapidly becoming socialized medicine. But we’re spending $787B at the same time, and federal spending on healthcare already exceeds that of any other nation. And universal health care will DESTROY an enormous area of our economy: the private insurance business. Yes: you hate them, but think about how many people work for Anthem, Aetna, UHC, CIGNA, and more. And who is going to administer your health plan? What will be the benefits? Will you be ejected from the hospital in as short a period of time as possible, or will the hospitals see a cash-cow and keep you as long as they possibly can? How long will you have to wait for a check-up? Will you be legally required to get an annual physical? Screenings? Immunizations?

Hawaii attempted universal health care for children a couple of years ago, and had to close the program within 8 months because of cash shortfalls. Their idea was to provide insurance for children whose families couldn’t afford private insurance, but they didn’t preclude those families who could, so parents across the state dropped their kids from their private insurance, and the plan bankrupted overnight.

So if our federal deficit is going to be $1.57T this year, what’s it going to be after the exodus from private insurance carriers? And who’s going to take on the burden of re-enrolling the country in private insurance after the federal plan fails? Or will we just keep funding the plan because we cannot admit failure at a federal level?

So how are we going to pay for all of this? Well, with troop withdrawals and tax increases for the wealthy. Ok, news flash: the truly wealthy don’t pay federal taxes. They didn’t get rich by just paying every bill that came their way. They got rich by being smart with their money, and if that means investing heavily in tax shelters, so be it. It’s not illegal, and shame on you for thinking it is. I’ve said for years that I want to found a charity, pay 100% of my salary to the charity, and live on a corporate stipend from the charity. If that charity happens to be based in Belize, I’ll have no tax burden.

US federal laws allow us to write off significant portions of our income as non-taxable, like our insurance payments, Social Security investment, 401k contributions, etc. There are plans that allow you to incorporate a private business and pay all the family members in your house up to something like $7000 right out of your paycheck tax-free. They can then give you one-time cash gifts that are equally tax-free.

Money-smart wealthy people have full-time accountants on staff to keep them from contributing to this nut-job scheme. So “a miracle happens here” most definitely applies whenever we just raise taxes on the rich.

But here’s the real secret, and it comes from the other half of the proposed method of payment: troop withdrawal. That’s code, people. That doesn’t mean we’re gonna bring the boys back home and live in harmony. That means we’re in for another Clinton-esque era of military spending: we’ll just shut ‘er down. Get ready to see mothballed fleets, the elimination of development programs for new fighters, bombers, and mobile weaponry. BRAC will probably get stepped up and go through another round of investigations and realignments. And most importantly, our military and intelligence communities will shrink dramatically.

Good? Really? That means more people trying to enter the already-deflated private sector. But the good news is that under Obama, we’ll have a large enough government to hire all of them. If that’s really good news.

Consider the state of affairs when Clinton was in office. All seemed harmonious in the good ole US of A, but we had a heck of a lot of problems: Waco, Ruby Ridge, Timothy McVeigh, the first WTC bombing, the USS Cole, attacks on our embassies in Nairobi, Dar es Salaam, and Beirut, and the 1996 fuel-truck bomb in Saudi Arabia. Every single one of these was a response to US policies under the “Let it Slide” president. Even the downing of the World Trade Center, which was set in motion long before GWB took office.

Clinton’s idea of military involvement was to limit US exposure. If we don’t talk about it and don’t commit troops, we’re not really involved. So we landed a few troops in Somalia and let them get cut to shreds as part of a UN task force. We fired cruise missiles into Iraq and other targets (occasionally and famously missing those targets for much higher profile targets, like the Chinese Embassy). We strongly condemned ethnic cleansing in parts of eastern Europe. But we didn’t get involved; we didn’t engage; and we turned down offers from our allies to hand over known terrorists.

How the hell did we vote to do all of it again? And why is everyone so damned gleeful about it?

Fast-Track to Political Stardom

I've figured it out: I now know how to get a top advisory position in the US Government, and I should be able to get it knocked out in 2012, if not by 1/20/2009!

All I have to do is run against Obama! Just look at his appointments: rife with former political rivals and old classmates. I can't hope to become an old classmate, but I can run a hopeless bid for office.

So what should I go for? Sec. of State? Sec. of Interior? I like that one. Ooh, maybe DHS?

There's probably not time to mount a campaign for this year, seeing as how the election was last month, but who knows! Put the word out: AHAMOS for president!

I Voted

And I think I f***ed up.

Not for the presidential race, but for the US Senate race. See, our choices were both former governors: Mark Warner (D) and Jim Gilmore (R). Ordinarily I slant toward the Republicans, since they fit more closely with my fiscal conservatism, but what I remember of Gilmore's tenure as governor wasn't terribly positive.

He promised to get rid of the car tax. Fail. He also sold significant portions of protected land to pay for government initiatives. Now, I had just graduated from W&M when I heard about that, and the land he wanted to sell had the same name as a man-made lake on campus, so I think maybe that just tugged at my heart-strings too much, but I didn't feel like he was taking Virginia's natural resources as a serious priority. True, Green and Republican don't often mesh, but generally Republicans don't seek to expand government.

So I felt like he short-changed us, and I voted against him today. But instantly I was wracked with guilt. Not because I'd voted Democrat, but because I remembered who else represents our Commonwealth in the US Senate: Lunatic Webb. You might remember Jim Webb as the nutjob who tried to take a gun into the Capitol, or as the fellow who refused to shake hands with the President. Webb capitalized on a horrid campaign gaffe on the part of then-shoe-in George Allen to deny a Republican seat in the Senate.

What made me so upset about remembering this is that I think Webb is dangerous, and without a counter-balance in the Senate, Virginia's elected representation may not truly represent her. VA is not a blue state. She's a mix: liberal at the top and boot-tip, and conservative pretty much everywhere else. So voting to put Warner (granted, he's moderate, but he's also the new guy) with Webb may well spell doom to Virginia's economy.

We owe a significant portion of our success in the Old Dominion to John Warner, who as Chairman of the Armed Forces Committee kept Norfolk Naval Yards afloat and funneled great gobs of cash into the state. Will M. Warner and Fruitcake Webb continue to see those as priorities? Will they have the same pull on Capitol Hill?

My biggest concern is that Webb will bully Warner and Virginia will not show her true colors for the next several years.

I still think Warner is a better choice than Gilmore, just not right now.

Oh, I'm so conflicted.

Hypermiling - If you do it, I swear to God I'll smack you

This article greeted me this morning in my round-up of the web. Interesting read. Interesting ideas. Only one of the ideas is a moderately good one: that of over-inflating your tires. The other ideas are REALLY REALLY BAD.
Among the other ideas were running low-viscosity oil, "drafting", and a curious technique that must be intended solely for hybrids called "pulse-and-glide".
I've come across others in the past, like accelerating to speed, briefly lifting, and then holding the accelerator very lightly, which supposedly leans out your fuel mixture. This, if true, would reduce the amount of fuel burned. But a lean fuel mixture runs much hotter than a stoichiometric (~12:1 air:gasoline) mixture, so engine-temps skyrocket. In front-rear mounted engine designs, the rear-most cylinder takes a beating from this type of driving, and over time that cylinder will lose compression, which means your engine will ultimately need expensive service. The lean mixture technique thus falls into the VERY BAD IDEA category.
Low-viscosity oil dovetails into the whole lean-mixture argument. As engine-mileage rises, greater tolerances are introduced. There's fatigue and scoring in the metals. Things wear down. Higher-viscosity oils tend to stay where they're supposed to, and help shore up weaknesses in older engines. They are highly recommended in higher-mileage trucks. Mine, for instance, is ticking. I've done a bunch of research on the issue, and most of the folks who've experienced mild engine trouble in high mileage trucks recommend switching from 5W30 to 10W30.
I have a coworker with a 200K-mile Toyota Avalon. He switched from 5W30 to 0W30 and picked up 2mpg. But at 200K miles, that motor is tired. It's never been over-bored or sleeved, so he's begging for blow-by, a condition where pressurized oil under the cylinders seeps (or sometimes blasts) up over the cylinder, filling the chamber and hampering combustion. This makes those beautiful blue-smoke clouds you see behind old Chevy Caprices and Novas.
Drafting is illegal. Period. It's stupid and dangerous, and as a result, it's illegal. Don't do it. If your fuel economy improves by 100% but your potential for a life-threatening accident increase by 1000%, you lose. Plain and simple.
Over-inflating tires is something I've experimented with. I've had marginal results, generally picking up a mile or two per gallon, but nothing amazing. There's a danger here, too: abnormal tire-wear. Over-inflating your tires can quickly lead to bald-spots on your tires, or if you inflate them to the maximum, you can wind up with bulges on the tire, which indicate that a moderate bump could explode the tire. I generally inflate to 10psi over the recommended cold pressure. The ride is a bit stiffer than normal, but that doesn't bother me too much, and the wear-patterns don't change.
But consider the "savings" of inflating to maximum versus the cost: if you inflate to save 2mpg, but run off 20K worth of potential mileage from your 50K-mile rated tires, then assume you'll need tires every 30K miles.
If your car generally gets 30mpg, then over 30K miles you're putting 1000 gallons in the tank. That's roughly $3,490 in today's prices. Improving that by 2mpg saves 62.5 gallons, so you'd spend $3271.88 on fuel. That's $218 in savings, or about half the price of a set of tires. Not worth it.
You'd have to gain a real improvement of 5mpg before you'd actually save money, and even then you'd have to keep your tires in good condition for at least 50% of their intended life-span. That's not going to happen.
Re-run the numbers with el-cheapo Pep Boys 80K-mile rated tires: in 60K miles, you'd put 2000 gallons in the tank at 30mpg: $6980. You'd put 1875 in at 32mpg, again using $3.49 as a standard gallon, you'd spend $6543.75. That's a fuel-savings of $436.25 (this number actually surprised me!). This time you come out about $100 ahead, but only if fuel prices remain constant. And it will have taken 3 - 5 years to have saved that $100.
Meanwhile, you can save $600 - $1800 / year by getting rid of cable TV. 4 times the savings in 1/5 the time!
I watch my fuel-economy on every single tank of gas that goes into the MINI. The on-board computer tells me that I generally get about 31.3 mpg. Quick back-of-the-napkin calculations tell me that the OBC is not always right: last night I got 10.008 gallons and had gone 330.1 miles. The OBC said 31.3, but it doesn't take a genius to realize that 330/10 = 33mpg. That's combined city & highway, and the car's rated 28/37 (32 combined)*, so it's right in line with what it should be.
A month ago, Amanda and I drove the MINI about 150 miles to and from the Northern Neck of VA, and keeping a constant speed of 64mph (engine turning at 3000rpm, a happy and fuel-efficient speed for the MINI) the OBC reported 39.8mpg average. I didn't get to finish that tank on highway driving, and it came down considerably, but at 39.8 (if accurate), I could have gone 517 miles. I suspect the economy was actually closer to 42mpg. Not bad. And the tires weren't even over-inflated.


*These numbers are based on the old EPA estimation method. Based on the new EPA ratings, the car is actually rated 25/33 (28 combined).

Edit: Evelyn didn't understand it, and I got distracted, so my conclusion was forgotten. Hypermiling is retarded and dangerous. It introduces unnecessary risk to your vehicle for the possibility of saving a few hundred dollars on gas. Those savings are lost in the replacement of other consumables and potentially monumental repair bills (and/or hospital bills). Just drive reasonably, stay in the slow-lane, take the more efficient vehicle if you have more than one and can choose, and do not, for the love of God, run fuel in your tank that's not intended for your motor. More tips:

1. Have a steep driveway? Back out with the car off and in Neutral.
2. Don't start the car until you're buckled in and ready to drive away.
3. Here's another surprise: accelerate quickly but reasonably to speed and then maintain speed. You'll burn more fuel accelerating, but for far less time than by driving like a grandma.
4. Use your cruise control; it's more stable than your foot.
5. Coast down hills.
6. Keep your speeds up on exit ramps. You'll save fuel by not having to accelerate into traffic, and it's fun!

Hate Crime

Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of Law:
a crime that violates the victim's civil rights and that is motivated by hostility to the victim's race, religion, creed, national origin, sexual orientation, or gender

American Heritage Dictionary:
A crime motivated by prejudice against a social group

Yesterday, Virginia put it's first legislated hate crime on the books. Good job, Virginia.

Virginia needs all its citizens to vote NO

I feel like I could write for hours on this, but I'm so emotionally wrapped up about it that I'll probably go awry in the first couple paragraphs...

On Tuesday, Virginians vote on whether or not to amend our constitution to only recognize marriage as a legal union between 1 man and 1 woman. Same-sex marriages and "common law" marriages will be officially precluded if this amendment passes. Depending on one's interpretation of the amendment, anyone under 18, even if they petition for the right to marry, will be denied.

We're treading on dangerous ground here. Never before has Virginia placed constitutional restrictions on the rights of its citizens. The US has denied the vote to African Americans and women, but constitutional amendments explicitly later granted those rights. The US also banned alcohol, and that didn't work out too well, either.

That forces the question: what is a constitution? As far as I understand it, it's a framework for government and a list of basic rights never to be denied. You won't find any statements that begin "No person shall..." in a well-written constitution. It is supposed to declare how the government will be arranged, the proper method to redress grievances and prosecute offenders, and declare where the legislative bodies may not tread.

In a sense, we look to our constitution to guarantee our freedom.

I've heard from my cube-mate that we can always overturn the amendment, but that scares me even more. If we start kicking our constitution around every few years as a method of political grandstanding, what good is it? Soon we'd find new amendments making it easier to make even more new amendments, and most of our legislation would fall out of the purview of the courts.

Imagine a world where moral legislation is out of reach of the courts. That would allow the majority party to present unchallengable legislation to the voters, who, by and large, tend to vote yes to anything they don't understand.

Speaking of which, what business do we have legislating morality anyway? How is it that "conservatism" has come to be synonymous with moral law? My understanding is that a true conservative believes in minimal government. I suppose that makes the Libertarian party the party of choice for those who don't care what you do in your own home.

Back on target...

I've read various statistics over the years, but the general consensus is that non-heterosexuals (homo-, trans-, bi-, tri-, etc) comprise somewhere between 10% and 12% of the general population. That's similar to the overall percentage of African Americans in the US. What we're effectively doing is deciding on Tuesday if sexuality comprises a minority, and if that minority deserves the same treatment as other historical minorities.

Nobody would ever assay to deny African Americans the right to marry, and yet there are statistically almost as many homosexuals. But African Americans stood up for their rights, and they're easy to recognize. For all you know, the man or woman right next to you could be gay. But the fact that you can't tell makes that person an easy person to victimize. A victim without a face isn't a victim, right? This is the logic used by millions of people who steal copyrighted songs and movies every single day.

But now were trying to legislate against this faceless force. They're "just a bunch of gays". Many people believe they're out to get their children, or that somehow they undermine the fabric of our society. If that's true, then so do black people. Because they compose as much a part of our societal structure as any other minority group.

Last point, and I'll shut up: the "sanctity of marriage".

What exactly is that? Is there an assertion that marriage is a holy, unbreakable union ordained by God, the State, and man? I don't deny that my marriage is ordained by God, the State, and me, but while I'd like to think that mine is unbreakable, statistics say there's a 50% chance that I'm wrong.

Furthermore, how does God fit into the equation when you're looking at this from a legislative perspective? The US Constitution, in its un-sullied Bill of Rights, guarantees freedom of religion. If my religion does not include God, then that point is moot.

Ah, but what if my religion recognizes unions between 2 men? Constitutionally, I'm guaranteed the right to practice my religion uninhibited. That right supercedes the Virginia constitution through the 10th Amendment to the US constitution, which precludes states from reversing the rights and laws of the US Constitution.

Most would agree that the above scenario is pedantic and unlikely, but there are churches popping up explicitly for this purpose.

Without losing sight of the goal, the point is simple: this amendment does nothing good and a lot bad. It precludes common-law marriage, preventing long-term noncommitted lovers from having any legal right to make power-of-attorney arrangements for their loved ones (without explicit authorization). It doesn't actually preclude homosexual unions, since there's already a law against that, but it does take the issue away from the courts (our only constitutionally mandated system for redress of grievances). It attempts to deify heterosexual unions, which have a 1 to 2 failure rate. And last, but not least, it disenfranchises a huge minority.

What's next: separate bathrooms and drinking fountains for gay people? Mandatory bussing of homosexuals to all school districts? Come on folks! We're already mucking around in the constitution, what would you like? I say no more Cherry Garcia ice cream. That stuff always freaked me out.

Nerd alert!

This whole California thing has been bugging the crap out of me, so I started doing some number crunching today.

I went to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics website and started looking for details into how much pollution comes from cars as opposed to other fossil-fuel burning means (agriculture, power plants, shipping, aviation, etc). They had some fascinating numbers for Carbon Monoxide and an array of other pollutants, but none that were easy to find for "greenhouse gases".

For instance, they show that in 2000, we (US or the world? I'm not sure) pumped 109 million short tons of CO into the atmosphere. Sounds like a horrible number, but while it's above the average for the preceding 10 years, it's below the average for the past 30. Of that 109M, 56.06M comes from transportation. The other 53.29M came from industrial processes. 56.06M is the lowest in the entire range of 30 years, and of that, 48.47M came from "on-road transportation".

Unfortunately, that number isn't further broken down, but the key here is that 86% of transportational CO emissions came from cars & trucks. That's just shy of 50% of the total CO released into the atmosphere for the whole year, and it, too, is the lowest in 30 years. It marks only the 2nd time we've dropped below 50M short tons of CO emissions from cars & trucks, and is 10M below the emissions level of 1990, when we commonly assume the era of eco-friendly vehicles to have started.

So the automotive industry has made some pretty big strides over the last 30 years, and they're getting better all the time.

But now let's analyze the greenhouse gas emissions of today. Wikipedia has a great entry on greenhouse gases, and it states that the number 1 greenhouse gas is water vapor, which is not affected by human activity, except on very small, local scales. Water vapor accounts for as much as 70% of all greenhouse gases (or as little as 35%, depending on the "expert"). Carbon Dioxide is a distant second, running anywhere from 9 to 26%, followed by methane (4 - 9%) and nitrous oxide (?%).

Since our two biggest contributions come in CO2 and methane, they're probably where we as humans can make the greatest impact into the phenomenon we've termed global warming.

CO2 levels have remained fairly consistent over the last 10K years: around 260 - 280ppm. Since industrialization, they've risen to approximately 365ppm: an increase of 31%. However, wikipedia shows a wonderful chart breaking down the sources of pollution by pollutant, and we see that transportation accounts for 19.2% of CO2.

Calculating our man-made contribution to this is fairly simple: multiply the increase (31%) by the contribution factors: 9 to 26%. We show a contribution-factor increase of CO2 somewhere between 1.65 and 4.77%. That's not much, and when we multiply that by the percentage which is attributed to transportation (19.2%), we get a range from 0.32 to 0.92%. All the transportation in the world accounts for less than 1% rise in atmospheric CO2. If we can even begin to assume the numbers for CO to have any relevance to CO2, then we can multiply that finding by 86%, revealing on-road transportation to have contributed anywhere from 0.28 to 0.79% of CO2 increases, and that's before you discount trucking.

The math is even easier for methane: the wikipedia entry shows absolutely no contribution from automobiles. None. So man has pumped that in through other means, principally agricultural.

So let's assume an absolute worst-case scenario: cars account for 0.92% of the increase in greenhouse gases that are supposedly raising the temperature of our world.

(And for the naysayers, the Wiki entry is a pro-global-warming page. They fully support the argument that man is destroying the environment with cars & trucks, but their numbers directly contradict the claim.)

California claims to have spent millions on this research. It took me a few minutes on the Bureau of Transportation Statistics website and a quick trip over to Wikipedia. Maybe Califoria residents should sue their legislators.

Here's another tidbit I just found. The BTS has another page on gas wasted due to congestion. In 2000, 1.188 billion gallons of gas were wasted due to congestion in Los Angeles, CA. The next closest metropolitan area was NY/NJ, at 658M. LA consistently shows over 1 billion gallons of gas wasted due to congestion for all but one year since 1990. By comparison, Richmond, VA wasted 11 million gallons.

1 billion gallons of gas. Per year. In one city. And they're suing the auto makers?

More to come. But in the meantime, consider that the man who brought this suit is running for Treasurer in California this November.

Take California

So California is suing the auto industry. They're going after Ford, GM, Chrysler, Toyota, Honda, and Nissan for "past and ongoing" contributions to global warming.

Allow me to rephrase that: California is going after broke companies for a phenomenon that hasn't been proven to exist. Along this line of logic, I've decided to sue my cube-mate for the possibility of aliens.

I think it's high time we cut our losses and force California to incorporate itself as a free-standing nation. Though they are the 8th largest economy in the world, they are a constant burden on our nation, our citizens, and the corporations that make our economy function.

California passed a law last year demanding that automakers cut emissions by 25%. From what I understand, it's a do-it-now kind of law. Automakers don't just have magic parts-bins with 25% emissions-cutters lying around, so improvements take time, research, and most importantly: money. Lots and lots of money.

Research isn't free; technology isn't free. But California wants immediate results, dammit. You can have it good, fast or cheap: pick any two. CA wants it good and fast, so that means the price of these new, efficient cars will be astronomical.

A ar that cost $15K last year could quickly become a $35K car next year. Typically, when the initial buy-in cost of a new technology is that prohibitive, the automaker will absorb some of that cost to help infiltrate the market and create a demand. Honda did this with the Insight. Each Insight cost Honda close to $70K to build, but they were sold for less than half that price. Honda knew that there was a market, but not a luxury-class market. They bit the bullet and absorbed a huge loss, spreading that loss across the rest of their product line.

But California says one model isn't enough, and again: they want it right now. With no means to absorb the costs of revamping entire product lines, the automakers tried to stall. There is no way people are going to pay the price for all this new crap just so one little piddly state can strong arm an industry.

So they're all getting sued.

First of all, why sue Honda? They're probably the greenest car company on the planet, and they've been working feverishly to make the best line of efficient cars for over 30 years, starting with the initial introduction of the Civic in 1972. I think the answer lies in the other green: Honda is tremendously successful as a company.

But why then sue Ford and GM? Is the point just to push them out of business? These two companies are so beleaguered that they even talked of merging earlier this year. GM has been in (and out of) talks with Nissan and other foreign investors, desperately trying to pump some capital into their dying veins. These companies are in deep trouble, and trying to pump them for "tens or hundreds of millions" will accomplish nothing more than placing tens or hundreds of thousands of Americans into the unemployment line.

The same can be said of the remaining 3: only the North American arms of these companies are in the CA scopes, so only American jobs stand to be affected.

Now to change the argument around just a bit: Why isn't California suing the shipping industry? Plenty of goods come in through California's shores, and sea-ships are horribly inefficient. What regulations keep their greenhouse gases down? There are more boats in the water than cars on shore, and hardly any restrictions on the output of their engines. California has one of the largest coastlines in this country, too. So why only car makers?

Not to mention power companies. Though heavily regulated, coal plants still put a lot more crap into the atmosphere than any car. Heck: probably more than any fleet of cars. But there's a secret here, and it's one that makes me think we need to expunge this canker from our great nation.

That secret is California's deplorable lack of resources, at least in relation to its power as an economic force. California constantly has water shortages, and "rolling blackouts" are a part of everyday life there. The other states of this nation sell California water and power every day, and we're thanked with car prices that are unnaturally elevated, cocky over-paid actors who don't pay taxes, and constant reports of illegal aliens mandating changes to our nation's education system.

Screw 'em. Force them out of the union and tax them for wine imports. Make them produce their own water and power, or sell it at a huge premium (or tax the companies that sell it to them with export tariffs). Take away their 49 electoral votes and make them fend for themselves. They can have their artificially inflated housing market, all the auto laws they want, and live peacefully on the West Coast, becoming a popular vacation destination.

That way, when they want to levy huge fines at companies doing business in California, those companies can simply exit the market and let the people decide what's really in their best interests.

The people of California can ride Segways to work, they can drink only the finest imported water, they can make solar sails to generate power, and we as a nation can point all illegal aliens to the left.

People live in fear of a world controlled by corporations: we ought to live in fear of local governments "acting in our best interests" and punishing us for having nice things.

Silly Highway Sign

I was driving to work tonight on I-95 South, and I was going maybe 60 mph through downtown Richmond. I caught a sign way off to the left (far enough that you actually have to look around to see it) advertising safety through slow driving.

It was a catchy sign, and over half the sign looked like a giant speedometer, but most of the writing on the speedometer was small, so I had to concentrate to see that the needle was pointed at "Life".

When I looked back at the road, I realized I was merging on top of someone. Great freakin' sign. Thanks, VDOT, for making a sign about safety that's so distracting it almost killed me.

Panty-waist Europeans

What the hell is going on in Europe these days? Everybody is suing Apple for compatibility issues over a freakin' MP3 player. Here's the gist:

Sweden, Denmark, France, and Norway are all suing Apple because songs downloaded from iTunes will only play on the iPod. The files are encoded in a lossless codec that is not readable by any other player or application.

This is like Sony's failed attempt to enter the market with their own proprietary format, except that Apple allows you to burn any song you download to CD. So, you can buy from iTunes, listen to the song on your computer, and burn a CD to listen to anywhere you go, but you can't listen to the song on your Creative Zen player.

But what makes this illegal? I mean, come on: Apple's been producing an operating system for the last 22 years that ONLY WORKS ON APPLE COMPUTERS!

And it's not like the iPod is the only player on the market. Nor, for that matter, is iTunes.

An Indictment of Modern-Day Politics -or- I am not a Republican

I am a conservative.

What the hell does that mean, and why am I wasting time this morning on it?

It means that I, in general, believe that Government's (big G) role is to provide a framework of basic laws to protect the rights of man, while acting as a nation's aggregate defense against and diplomat to other nations.

I believe it is the responsibility of multiple governments to create the minimal amount of laws necessary to ensure that people live in relative peace, but are free to pursue their own goals, and that municipalities, like businesses, should be free to create whatever laws are mandated by their local constituencies. This, in turn, creates competition (for tax dollars), and gives the individual the right to choose the laws under which he / she shall live.

I believe that the People (big P) should elect their local representation, and their representation in the Congress of each level of government under which they live, but that the government itself should choose or appoint representatives with similar authority to represent the needs not seen by the common man. This was originally provided in the Constitution, but subsequent Amendments changed the way we put people into office.

I believe that the US Constitution is a perfect document. It is NOT a living document, subject to re-interpretation, editing, redacting, or writing off as "old-fashioned". The Constitution provided a very basic framework under which the federal government oversaw international relations and free trade between states. It acted solely as an arbiter, never as a moral authority, never as a benevolence association. And the federal government had very little say in the average person's day-to-day activities.

And yet that seems to be the "old-fashioned" idea. I've harped on it before, but our federal government seems to have more direct involvement with our lives than any of our local or state laws. Most people have no idea who their local councilmen are, little idea of who represents them at the state level, and yet a strangely overdeveloped notion of who their US senators are. We all know who the president is, along with probably at least half of his cabinet, but to what end?

You might have voted for all of these people, but when you get right down to it, the government level at which you can affect the most change is most likely alien to you. In days of yore, the taxpayer paid the municipality. The municipality was then responsible for remunerating the state, which, in turn, paid the federal government. The idea was simple: you wrote one check, and everyone got paid. If you had a beef with your local government, you withheld payment and got a bunch of other folks to do so, too. Your voice was heard, and you effected change.

Now, when you pay taxes, you have no clue what happens to your money. You pay federal taxes directly to the IRS, which then gives a big chunk of that money right back to the states in building and road programs. The money you give to the state goes to places unknown, but a large percentage of that pays your local taxes. Strange, but true. Consider the car tax: when it was first implemented, it was a way for localities to collect taxes. Then the state took control of your car tax, and paid something like 90% of the revenue back to the locality. Then the state decided to abolish the car tax (as a state tax), but continued paying 90% of the originally projected revenue back to the localities, with the plan to eventually phase that remuneration out. The localities complained, and rather than levying their own local car taxes, they got the state car tax re-instated. The funny thing is, you've always paid your car tax directly to the locality, never to the state. WTF?

Ok, back on target: government != moral authority. In general, I support the Republican party. Their beliefs do not always coincide with mine, but from the general perspective of minimal government, they're the best fit for me. And I've been a strong supporter of George Bush through his first 5 years of office, but I'm getting tired of him.

At first it was just little annoyances, like the gay marriage amendment. I have a lot of gay friends, and at first I thought I agreed with the notion that benefits would be very tricky to ensure if marriage were completely unrestricted. But then I heard that there are no federal laws that define marriage in any way (although a lot of federal laws depend on there being at least some basic definition of marriage), and I realized (completely unrelated) that there's no reason to deny people the opportunity to pledge love to each other.

So that started to piss me off. Why do we need this as a constitutional amendment? And why was he campaigning so hard for it to be a constitutional amendment? Remember: I believe the Constitution is a perfect document. And that brought us to flag burning, which, though annoying, is protected as a form of expression by the First Amendment. Attempting to deny this First Amendment right is a violation of the 9th Amendment.

And, intermingled in all of this, we get the stem cell debate. Why is this a debate? In principal, I agree that it's terrible to destroy life, but I'm not of the opinion that a government that allows abortions up to the 2nd trimester is in any position to moralize on EMBRYOs. Now, I'm not anti-abortion, but it's still a tough pill to swallow: "You can kill that fetus if you don't want it, but you can't dedicate an embryo to helping cure disease."

All of these are examples of George Bush reaching into our homes and dictating our behavior, and all for a few votes that he personally doesn't need. I think he's lost his compass. I liked him better when he was dealing with international issues, and allowing the country to take care of itself. People hated him for it, but I respected it. Why did he need to be personally involved in Katrina? It's not like some terrorist organization or foreign government caused the devastation, so why does the president need to be involved? It made no sense, but the public wanted to hang him for his aloof treatment of the hurricane.

I loved his response to China when our spy plane was captured in 2001. I was deeply impressed by our swift actions to remove the Taliban from power, and had no moral compunction with our invasion of Iraq. I think a strong-arm approach is sometimes necessary with Europe, and Russia is truly regressing. Our efforts to help with the Kursk, our awesome pull with Khadafi, and our pressure on both Iran and North Korea are to be lauded. But every time I hear him talk about something on American soil, I get angry.

But I can't place all the blame on George Bush, nor would I want to. I impeach us, as the citizens of this country, for imbuing the office of the President with supreme legislative power, for ignoring our responsibility to our local governments, for putting too much faith in our Senators (who, incidentally, were originally appointed by the states to represent state governments), instead of our congressmen, and for demanding a moralizing government.

We live in a welfare state, with social security, medicare, medicaid, and a bevy of other programs where we rely on the federal government to fund our ventures. We no longer need to fend for ourselves to be successful, but in exchange, we allow the NEA, the Department of Education, and countless other federal agencies to place restrictions on our daily lives, and our collective response to their quest for more power is to give it to them, robbing and marginalizing our local representation.

Our voices are no longer heard, and we have elected a king.