Famille Du Pentium

Speaking of high gas prices, there's a reason why Venezuela hates us and Bolivia (along iwth most of Latin America) distrusts the US.  Sure, Hugo Chavez is nuttier than your grandmother's fruitcake.  But he's a hero in his country, and the reason that his countrymen like him and dislike the US is simple - we're the 900 pound gorilla, and they're dirt poor.  Oh, yeah, and there's the little matter of the fact that the US doesn't care.

Today,  leaders of Bolivia, Venezuela, and Cuba signed a Latin American Trade Agreement.  This is especially good new for Cuba's Castro and Bolivia's Morales.  Castro gains addiitional influence in the reagion, and Morales gaines valuable resources for his country from oil rich Venezuela and the higher educated Cuban population.   The only loser is the United States of America.  Why?  Because our proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas should really be called "Free Trade Area for America" since it does little to help the abject poverty in the Latin American region. 

Sigh.  Business as usual.  Our best lawmakers and diplomats couldn't come up with a plan that was fair and useful for poor Latin American countries, so instead they  put all their resources into trying to sell the ineffective one they have.  But few are biting.  The more advanced and wealthy Latin American countries, like Mexico and Chile, have signed agreements with Washington as well as poorer Columbia and Peru (largely due to pressure to keep up the drug war), but some key countries such as Brazil have refused to side with Washington. 

The problem is that the agreement signed by Bolivia, Venezuela, and Cuba are good for all three countries.  There's no reason for them not to sign the agreement, Washington certainly has not offered anything better.   Washington's interests are ensuring that America gets unfettered access to Latin American markets.  But are they offering to send doctors? Or farming specialists?  Or even experts on maximizing oil profits (Venezuela's  primary export).  No, rather, we'd rather give them unfettered access to US markets for things they don't make or grow, and tell them not to grow the things they can.

The US policy toward Latin America must change, and soon.  I'm not saying we give the leftists our undying loyalty, and they have some changes to make too.  But the while Hugo Chavez is acting like a nine year-old, we have to learn to act like the diplomatic adults we are and recognize the problems facing Latin America, and do something real to address them.

Posted by Michael Humphries-Dolnick at 02:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I guess yesterday I started to write a political blog entry about gas prices, then somehow got sidetracked.  So here are my thoughts on the politics of the gas crisis.

First, some history.  Gas is refined from crude oil.  Most of the world's crude oil reserves are located in the Middle East and Africa, although the United States has a fairly large reserve as well.  Only our insatiable demand causes our huge reserve to seem a pittance in comparison.  We could easily supply the needs of many smaller countries if we were not such a huge drain on the world oil supply ourselves.

Middle Eastern countries throughout the first half of the twentieth century were dirt poor, despite their huge crude oil reserves.  Crude oil prices were "set and forget", and the countries that held the reserves were more or less pushed into supplying anything the oil companies wanted at very low set prices.  On top of that, they required resources from Western countries, and those resources were sold to them at huge profits. 

On top of that, as we all know, the Middle East is unstable, and has been for a long time.  Especially with the creation of The State of Israel, turmoil has reigned in the Middle East for many years.  Eventually, in the 1970's, the countries most rich in oil realized that the west had become so reliant on them for oil that they could swing the market.  They cancelled their agreements with oil companies, and began grouping themselves together as a "cartel" to control supply, and thus prices.  And they used this control as a weapon for political change.  This may sound like a brash accusation, but in 1972 they were quite unabashed about their intention to use oil prices as a weapon against Israel's allies.  Any country that supplied support or materiel to Israel was "embargoed", that is, the cartels stopped selling them oil.

America was deeply affected.  Prices skyrocketted, and shortages ensued.  Lines at gas stations were normal, and the government imposed price, supply, and market controls.  But America did not give up her support of Israel.  

Eventually the countries and cartels backed down.  Production was increased and prices eventually dropped.  But the effect of the "oil crisis" was longer term: first the effect of everyting that oil touches caused inflation.  But initially the Fed believed that, even though high oil prices had caused inflation in many other sectors, the problem was essentially a short-term inflationary pressure on the energy sector.  As such, they did what they believed to be the best course of action at the time, and reduced interest rates.  This drove inflation through the roof, and led to a non-growing economy with increasing prices (AKA "Stagflation")  The feds next (over)reaction was to correct itself, and impose draconian rate increases that pushed the average mortgage into the double digits.

Meanwhile, back in the Middle East, Egypt was stymied as to what to do about Israel.  Every time Egypt tried to attack, the American-backed Israelis pushed further into Egyption territories.  They felt that they had the upper hand because, in the cold-war late 70's, the Soviet Union was backing Egypt.  However, even though the Soviet Union had every interest in taking a whack at America, what the Egyptions overlooked was that they had little interest in further destabilizing the Middle East.  Once this became painfully clear to Egypt, they came to the negotiating table, and made peace with Israel. 

Another important piece of history to bear in mind is that Saudi Arabia, which had effectively declared war on America with its oil embargo, was effectively first recognized by the UK, which had also withheld support for Israel (also having promised the the area to Palastine prior to 1948).  As the war with the Nazis wound down, there were clear winners and clear losers, and the Middle Eastern countries that had aligned with Hitler found themselves unfavored by Western countries.

This chagned with the power discovered with oil reserves in the second half of the twentieth century.    But as the oil cartels learned, that power only went so far.  Their coffers were enrichened, and their countries definately benefitted from the addional oil revenue.  But they were unable to use oil as a weapon, even against the oil-hungry Americans. 

Today, we have several countries trying to relearn the lessons that the Saudis and Libyans and Iraqis and Egyptians learned thirty years ago... do not engage the west in a war with oil.  

But crude supply is not the only problem.  America's government is very innefficient, and  has instituted vast energy-saving requirements that affect the delivery of gasoline.  These changes were not phased in, they were simply implemented... last week.  Now the gas companies are scrambling to figure out how to ship ethanol (which for chemical reasons cannot go through the same pipelines that it's predecessor, MBTE, went through) from the midwest to everywhere in America.  And the gas companies aren't blameless either, they knew about the new rules months ago but assumed that the federal government would give them some breathing room to implement the new rules.  The government did not, the gas companies didn't act until it was too late, and now Ethanol doesn't get to the entire US fast enough to be blended with gas for delivery to pumps.  The resulting (albeit minor) shortages have led to price increases.

Mind you, the prices were increasing already when the US and Iran and Venezuela began their sabre-rattling.  No supply disruptions have occurred yet, but yet the futures traders, worried that there will be supply shortages, are already driving up prices in the spot market.  

But the oil companies don't buy crude and sell gasoline in the spot market.  So this should not have the impact that it has.  So why are prices still going up?

Posted by Michael Humphries-Dolnick at 01:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

So, everybody up for yet-another-blog-entry on the high prices of gas? 

Before I start, I think that there are several basic truths that must be layed out and agreed:

1.  The petroleum energy market is not a actually a market-based system based on free enterprise.  Whether it's the Saudis or Iran or the U.K. or even the United States, many governments have a hand in trying to influence energy prices.   

2.  Demand is relatively inelastic - that's an economics term meaning that as prices rise, demand does not react as flexibly as prices, and more profits can be gained simply by raising prices without fear of losing sales due to reduced demand.

3.  That said, the U.S. has, historically, been fairly effective at reducing demand, when we really really want to.

Now first of all, let's face it... Jimmy Carter was the last president to really take a crack at energy independance, and despite his great intelligence and willingness to break the mold, the best he could come up with was putting some solar panels on the White House roof and advising us all to turn down our thermostats.  And the Democrats pine over the days when a "real" alternative-energy president the likes of Carter presided.  So let's face it, there has really been no real leadership in this area, ever.  Ralph Nader could probably change that, but unfortunately he's simply too nutty to get elected president.  Apparently someone didn't clue him in that checking the "Nutty as your grandmother's fruitcake" box on the application to run for president would have a negative impact.

So lacking any real substantive leadership now and in the near future (and mind you, I'm not excluding  George Bush - like his policies or not, at least he's come up with something.  But he didn't care until this year, so he still needs to prove himself to me) what we're faced with is:

- We rely very heavily on petroleum.  That's not likely to change soon.

- Even if it does, the Chinese rely even more on petroleum, and they can easily make up for all the demand that we could possibly reduce

- Petroleum is going away.  In the 10,000,000 year relative sense, it's going away really soon.

What are our options?  Should we sell our SUV's?  Should we install windmills and solar panels on our house? 

Yes, you should sell your SUV's.  Not because they guzzle gas, sure that's a valid reason, but because they're stupid.  Minivans are much safer, and honestly - how often do you really need 4WD?  I mean, honestly?

No, don't install windmills and solar panels, just yet.  Because the honest truth is, the whole point of energy policy is coming up with a solution to an economic problem.  The dinosaurs are already dead.  All that's left of them is the money they're worth, and how much it will cost to replace them.  If we go nuts and spend all our money on the replacements, we won't have any money to pump into our economy, which is the whole reason we want a replacement in the first place, to keep our economy booming ahead.  Solar panels and windmills just plain aren't commercially viable and economically efficient.  All you're doing is replacing one expensive energy source with another one.  

You would do well by planning now on how you can make yourself more energy efficient later.  Buy high efficiency, low energy consumption appliances.  Don't break your bank doing it, that defeats the whole purpose.  Within your spending range for each new appliance, strive to purchase the unit that has the lowest yearly energy cost.  Compare those little yellow tags on each model, and buy the one (within your budget) that has the loweat yearly cost.  Eventually, you'll replace every appliance in your house with new appliances that consume less energy, and your overall consumption will be significantly reduced without much effort.

Second, when you buy a new vehicle, think about what's changed since the last vehicle you purchased.  You may be emotionally married to that GMC SUV, but be honest - the kids are growing up now, soon they'll be driving their own cars, and you really don't need it any more.  Buy a big car instead.  Or a minivan.  Or maybe it's time to move back down to a mid-sized sedan.  Be realistic.  Plan ahead 7 years for your next car and take into account what you'll really use it for.  Don't worry about hybrids yet.  Again, stupid.  Spending more money on the non-renewable resources to make batteries iis not superior to spending more money on the non-renewable resources to drive a gas guzzler.  Just buy the most efficicient car in your price range for the size you really need.

Lastly, don't expect things to get better.  Plan now to be more energy efficient ten years from now, because it will most assuredly be worse then.  And having not broken your bank to get there, you will laugh at your so-called "green" neighbor next door who is replacing his solar panels for the third time, and the other neighbor who still can't manage to figure out that buying an HE water heater five years ago would still be saving him money today.  Energy-proof yourself, then sit back and laugh at the morons who either didn't or went broke going all out. 

 Oh yeah, and all I can say for gas prices now is, invest in oil company stock.  The gains & dividends will offset your higher prices.  :)

Posted by Michael Humphries-Dolnick at 08:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Posted by Michael Humphries-Dolnick at 03:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Posted by Michael Humphries-Dolnick at 03:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

There used to be a separate page for funny stuff I found that I published here, but it got obscured in the new blog.  So I'm adding some of it back as blog entries.  Now you can find it by using the "Humor" category on the right side.

Here's the first entry: the Mars Rover picture from Mars...

Posted by Michael Humphries-Dolnick at 03:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Many of my friends who have more, uh, liberal tendancies, are no doubt giggling with delight that I, a disenfranchised Republican, who has written very scathing articles about the current college of Republican leaders in America, am about to impart my opinions about Donald Rumsfeld.  But they will be disappointed.

Donald Rumsfeld must stay.  

There are many reasons that I have come to this opinion.  First, I have not changed my stance on the Iraq war.  Hussain had to go, huge mistakes were made, but we can't just back out now.  And, most importantly, we cannot afford to radically change our leadership just because things are not going the way we expected.

First of all, things are not going as bad as we hear.  I'm not going to morph into one of those paranoid media-bashing ultra-conservative Repubs now, but honestly... the world media simply is providing us with a very slanted view of the progress in Iraq.  We see a lot of bad stories, but we see few good ones.  My friends who have been there and hard-to-find articles from alternate sources give a different view... of an American force who is making a difference in Iraq and gaining acceptance and even help from the locals in repelling the insurgency.  

Second,  having spent much of my youth around Army bases and Army people, I can say quite confidently that these retired military flags-ranks who are now coming out of the woodwork on CNN and other media outlets and criticising Rumbsfeld are a bunch of media-exposed jackasses.  Military generals throughout time and history have called their reining SecDef an SOB, but none have ever taken their befs to the media.  It's just not done.  It shows poor discipline and understanding of the chain of command, and a general disrespect for the office of the President. 

There is a reason that we (the Royal we here, I mean Americans) have a civilian head of our military.  200 plus years ago, we were very unique.  It is a model that we developed, and it has been copied everywhere in the free world.  Prior to us, there were few large scale examples of civilian-run military.  The government of the people, and by the people, includes the military, and the people, not Generals, have the final say about the strategic direction of the military.  And that is a good thing.  The alternatives can be clearly seen in countries that can't manage to keep a ruler in power without a military coup.  

So some generals don't like Rumsfeld's decisions?  Boo hoo, that's tough old boys, because that's exactly how the founders of our country wanted it.  If they wanted you to make the big decisions, they would have put you in charge.  

 Some have suggested that retired General and former SecState Colin Powell would be a better military leader right now.  These people are pining for the days when Powelll had power in the Bush administration.  But Colin Powell has been out of the loop, and out of the White House, too long.  It would take him too long to get up to speed, and even then any changes he made would not likely take effective hold in the next two years, if ever. 

It's time to let the civilian leadership get to work to make things better in Iraq, and the military leaders should get back to their jobs.  And that job is not political commentator on CNN. 

Posted by Michael Humphries-Dolnick at 06:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I find myself again writing a blog entry that criticizes a prominent member of the political party with which I associate.  Today, former Illinois Governor George Ryan was found guilty on all counts, including a little-known racketeering charge - that charge relates to the obstruction of a federal probe into an auto accident.

During Ryan's tenure as Secretary of State, the Willis family was driving their minivan full of kids near Milwaukee, Wisconsin.  An allegedly out-of-code semi truck threw off a loose part, and that part struck the Willis's van.  It burst into flames, and six of the Willis's nine children were killed.  In the ensuing investigation, the truck driver admitted that even though he was not qualified to drive the truck, he had purchased his commercial license from the Illinois Secretary of State's office for a cash contribution to the Ryan campaign.  

Maybe George wasn't responsible for that incident directly.  I can believe that.  Illinois State government is so thoroughly corrupt that it's easy to believe that many lower levels of corruption existed to put this dangerous driver in the path of the Willis family.  But was George Ryan was responsible for, says the jury today, was covering up the investigation into how that truck driver got his license ... an investigation eventually called the "Licenses for Bribes" scandal, and it involved many more cases than the Willis's.  

In the end, the Willis's have little comfort.  Their children are still dead, the victim of a truck driver who shouldn't have been on the road at the time, but was because money was more important to a state official than safety.  The Willis's had little to say about the verdict, other than "The door is closed for us."  

What did Ryan have to say, when asked what he was thinking about the racketeering verdict?

"Get out of my way." 

Posted by Michael Humphries-Dolnick at 06:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

In March / April 2006 I took my family of five (two adults including myself, three kids aged 2, 3, and 8 years old) to New York City for a family vacation.  Because we were staying downtown and sightseeing in that area, I did not need a rental car and didn't want to pay $21 a day parking plus car rental just to get to and from the airport.  Also, I was concerned that we would not all fit into a standard NYC Taxi, especially since we have two kids in carseats. 

I went online and booked my trip, prepaid, from the Super Shuttle website.   The sign-up was fairly easy, although a bit confusing because they want you to book your trip to the airport first and your trip from the airport second.  

On March 31 at about 11:00 AM, Upon arriving at LaGuardia and making my way downstairs, I found complete chaos.  The hotel shuttle desk was staffed, but with people who were clearly not in control of the situation.   My prepaid instructions told me to go directly to the phone and press the button for Super SHuttle, so I did.  It dialed me through, and a surly person asked for my confirmation number and promptly put me on hold for ten minutes.  Given the chaos that was ensuing at the counter, I held.  Finally I got through to someone who took my information and told me that a shuttle was on the way, and the driver would know my name.  No estimated arrival, no van number, they just gave me that and hung up.  So I took in some of the activities at the desk.  The lady behind the desk was handing out tickets to people who were already waiting, so I asked if I needed a ticket and showed her my pre-paid email confirmation.  She simply walked away as if I spoke another language.  After firmly reasserting myself, she acknowleged my existance and told me to go pick up the phone.  When I told her I had already done that, and was just curious if I needed to exchange my voucher for a ticket, she told me to go pick up the phone.  Mind you, she was wearing a Super Shuttle badge.  Meanwhile, passengers who had been waiting for hours were complaining to both people behind the desk, and drivers were coming in, calling out people's names, asking where they were going, and replying "I don't have enough room for you."  So I was getting a bit worried.  Finally one lady behind the desk advised me to call their dispatch center (the other end of those mystic phones) back, and ask them to look up my van number and ETA.  I did, and was told 10 minutes and a van number.  I watched the chaos continue.

 In about 10 or so minutes, my van actually arrived.  I had a pile of luggage (three kids) plus a stroller and two car seats; he grabbed the car seats first and I figured he was going to put them in the van seats.  When I arrived outside with our luggage, I found that he had packed the car seats into the back of the van.  Upon entering the van, I learned why - even though I had made reservations for five and had confirmed five when I called their dispatch, there was only one bench seat open, that would normally hold three.  No room anywhere for car seats, and given the chaos in the terminal, I wasn't about to take my chances and wait for another one.  We held our kids tightly and hoped for the best.

 Luckily no accidents occured but I was miffed to learn that I had been routed on a shuttle that had to drop off three passengers at upper Manhattan hotels.  My hotel was the Marriott Financial District, nearly as far downtown as you could go.  We ended up taking a little over an hour to get from La Guardia to downtown.

On the return trip, the van was wide open and plenty of room for car seats.  The driver was much more courteous, and he seemed to be training a new driver.  The driver arrived on time, loaded my bags, helped me secure the car seats, and helped us up into the van.  Upon arrival at La Guardia he unloaded our bags to the curb and helped me unload the kids and car seats.  

The service at Super Shuttle seems hit-or-miss.  I probably won't use them again, because when I'm travelling with my family I can't afford to take risks like holding my kids because the van can't accomodate a car seat.  Also I don't think I want to take a chance of waiting hours for a shuttle in the future - I'm sure I lucked out this time but next time I could be that poor schmo who waited nearly two hours for his shuttle.   

Posted by Michael Humphries-Dolnick at 06:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This might turn out to be a "Rant and Rave", or maybe a political entry.  But for now, I'll leave it "Technical".

MIT Professor Nicholas Negroponte has made a rather public announcement recently that he intends to have MIT develop a "$100 Laptop" that MIT will then leverage to get technology into the hands of developing countries.  This is both a technically ambitious and charitable effort - the ability to produce a $100 PC in quantity has long been a holy grail of cutting edge PC manufacturers and upping the ante to make it a laptop makes it even more interesting.  This will require a great deal of new technology development, hence the need for MIT to do it, because the components today just simply aren't cheap enough in quantity to maintain production at a zero or miniscule profit.  So the boys at MIT have their work cut out for them.  I'm rooting for them.

 Apparently Bill Gates is not.  He is mocking them.  Apprently sensing a threat to his new "Tablet PC", which has nothing to do with putting technology in the hands of developing nations, Bill Gates has come out saying:

“The last thing you want to do for a shared use computer is have it be something without a disk ... and with a tiny little screen,”

He went on to mock the crack that provides power when a battery is not present, and other features of the PC.  I guess those Ugandan children really ought to learn to plug their laptops in - to what, I don't know.  Maybe Bill envisions electric goats or something in Africa.

Clarly Bill Gates is put off by anyone who challenges him both at technology and charity.  The Bill and Melinda Gates foundation is certainly very generous... with some causes.  But it hasn't promised to put technology into the hands of the masses like MIT has.   Also, Bill completely misses the point of the project... to provide A PC to every child in the developing world, not a SHARED PC.   I think Bill engaged his mouth before checking the brain gear position this time.  

First of all Bill, unlike your world, it's not about $100.  Ugandan children can no more afford a $100 dollar PC than a $3000 PC.  That's not the point.  The only people paying a dime for these PCs will be developers, who will likelly run, not walk to get the opportunity to develop software for the billions of emerging markets.  Oh and probably some NGOs, and even government organizations.  But certainly not some South African tribal pre-teen.  And Bill's higher spec tablet PC will be as interesting to them as ... well, you get the point. 

The point is, that MIT is working to make a notebook so cheap that a real difference can be made by organizations that do have the money to buy them.  That's a far cry better than Gates is doing right now.

Some news links after the jump. 

DNA Evolutions - Microsoft chief Bill Gates mocks the $100 PC 

 Wired - Laptop Detractors Shrugged Off

Posted by Michael Humphries-Dolnick at 08:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)