HMM: Report: Toyota to limit U.S. Prius V to five seats, other markets seat seven. “Toyota spokesman John Hanson gives several reasons for this decision, but two stick out above all others. Perhaps most important is the fact that the U.S. version of the V will come only with a nickel-metal-hydride battery pack, which takes up a lot of room in the hybrid’s hind-quarters to offer a sufficient third row. The Euro and JDM models will feature lithium tech, which is smaller and more compact.”
Archive for 2011
March 14, 2011
RADIATION MEASUREMENTS: Reader Peter Caroll notes the Banana Equivalent Dose.
MORE ON THOSE Department Of Education insider-trading scandals.
ROGER KIMBALL: The Aroma Of Illegality.
IN THE MAIL: From David Boren, A Letter to America.
SO IS THIS THE HOPE, OR THE CHANGE? Report: First-time Buyers Fade From Market.
RASMUSSEN: Only 3% of Americans Say Ivy League Produces Better Workers. “Ronald Reagan was the last president we had who didn’t graduate from an Ivy League school like Harvard or Yale, and the highest levels of government for much of the nation’s history have been filled with Ivy League grads. But that doesn’t seem to influence the thinking of most American Adults.” Or maybe it has . . . .
ASTROTURFING in the midwest.
IN TIMES OF CRISIS, people turn to the Internet.
YESTERDAY WAS THE 22D ANNIVERSARY of the great Quebec blackout.
THE BELMONT CLUB: Sea Power vs The Earthquake. “Seapower exploits the fact that the sea represents the cheapest way to move vast quantities of material great distances. The US Navy, in particular, has developed ways of carting around its own airports, docks, field hospitals, communications facilities, barracks, warehouses and fuel depots — and maintaining them in the face of resistance. Originally conceived for the purposes of maritime warfare, these same capabilities are superlatively effective at providing assistance when the supporting infrastructure breaks down. The USN has been doing this so routinely since World War 2 that the world often forgets how prodigious this capability is. . . . Most of the time nobody remembers that the Navy exists, but when they need it, they all thank God that it’s there.”
UPDATE: Reader John Mitchell writes: “Is it just me or do others find it quite fitting, if not somewhat ironic, that President Obama has dispatched the USS Ronald Reagan to aid in the Japan relief effort?”
JAPANESE EARTHQUAKE CAUSING antinuclear folks to get frisky. I’d say that members of Congress should take a time-out — and maybe, you know, pass a budget — before they start trying to pass new laws on nukes. They should also explain where the energy is going to come from if we can’t drill for oil, can’t burn coal, can’t dam streams, can’t put windmills where they might spoil a Kennedy’s view, and can’t build nukes. Vague allusions to “green power” don’t count.
UPDATE: Reader Arthur Sorkin writes: “Another argument for liquid fluoride thorium reactors, which are inherently self-regulating and fail-safe.”
And reader James White comments: “There’s no question the conventional wisdom is this will probably kill nuclear power off for the foreseeable future. The question is, is that true? If we can build containment vessels that hold despite an 8.9 quake, tsunamis, and multiple hydrogen explosions, maybe nukes are the way to go after all.”
Well, as I said in my earlier post, we don’t really know what’s going on. But this is a good argument for the several newer, inherently-safe nuclear designs. The good news: General Electric, which is joined at the hip to the Obama Administration, is big in the nuclear business. So corruption and interest may do the work that should be done by sound policy here . . . .
ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Andrew Medina says we’re lucky to face nuclear-plant problems, because if the tsunami had hit a solar farm instead, “10,000’s of Lbs of lead and cadmium telluride would have been swept into the Sea of Japan poisoning just about everything.”
Plus, reader Charles Alley writes: “Rather than not building nuclear plants, maybe we should just not build them in major (9.0 Richter Scale) quake zones. The Japanese don’t have that option. We do. Even with the problems in Japan, I will stake the safety record of nukes against coal for example any time. Coal death and damage just tends to happen to poor people who don’t generally get coverage on CNN. Imagine what would happen in a coal mine district if a 9.0 earthquake hit.”
Meanwhile, I see that Drudge is linking an item on Alex Jones’ PrisonPlanet site about fallout reaching the West Coast I can’t tell what it says because the Drudge link has killed the server, but I’d approach anything from that conspiracist site with skepticism, and I’m disappointed to see Drudge linking it.
AT AMAZON, spring grilling markdowns.
MICHAEL BARONE: Libya And Budget Support: President Obama Votes “Present.”
MICKEY KAUS not loving the new Newsweek. “Admission: I tried to read the cover story on Hillary Clinton. I really did. It is unreadable. It would be easier to swim the Bering Strait. It’s like one of those full page advertisements Kim Il Sung used to buy in the New York Times, except that the Kim articles had some style.”
DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE ignores the law on racial discrimination.
More here.
RUNNING THE PHOTO WAS CRUEL.
UPDATE: Not as cruel as this one.
THE MAGIC 99-CENT KINDLE PRICE POINT.
SOME GOOD NEWS: Niger presidential election ‘is example for Africa.’
ANOTHER PRECEDENT BEING ESTABLISHED: Pro-Union Protesters Now Videotaping License Plates at Scott Walker Fundraisers.
Tea Partiers should feel free to do the same now, I guess.
REMEMBER WHEN EVERYONE WAS WORRIED ABOUT USING “PROVOCATIVE” LANGUAGE ABOUT POLITICAL FIGURES? Me neither. Time Magazine Headline: ‘Wisconsin’s Governor Wins But Is He Still Dead Man Walker?’