patrick.net

No Heller today. Crap…..

The decision should be out soon, right? Let's keep our fingers crossed. The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

hmm, it's been very quiet and peaceful here without me, I see...

By a coincidence I was just looking at the Mercedes-Benz diesel-electric hybrid setup for the Sprinter platform the other day, and there were a few slides of PHEV analysis by Drs in the field...

Main problems hampering efficiency in the Prius are the sheer weight of the heavy battery and electric motor combination. That's why some diesels are just as economical. And the reason for the weight is that current battery technology still can't deliver power without size. The best performer for the application is a lithium-ion battery, but it is also currently v. expensive to produce -- and hence the fuel savings can be outweighed by the initial cost of the battery over the lifetime of the battery and/or vehicle. However, with time, mass-production will bring the price per unit down.

You can charge a lithium-ion battery some 3,000(?) times, I believe, far many more than a lead-acid battery, and it potentially will last up to the effective lifetime of the vehicle.

http://www.whnet.com/4x4/hybrid.html

oh, and that was Jeremy Clarkson from 'Top Gear', a lad's show about cars. Clarkson is about as redneck as a Brit can get ; )

STCM:
I’m more likely to buy an electric bicycle, or conversion kit. I commute by bicycle a bit today, about half of the time when the weather’s nice enough. If I had electric assist I’d probably bike to more places, and in somewhat warmer weather (I’m in Phoenix).

try my favourite: http://www.aerorider.com - it's costly, but the guy is seeking VC to try to build more cheaply say in US... anyone able to help?

Looks like my models are gathering steam.

DOW at 11,600
Fed rae increases being facored in as 33% chance next meeting, 96% probable meeting after that.
Write-offs at 400b but expected to go higher
Case=Shiller showing retrace ending early 2010 back to Mid October 2000 levels.

ShortTermCapitalMgmt, now that you mention it, I recall thinking the price was pretty affordable so it might have been 10 or 14 thousand.

So, the mortgage bailout is going to be paid by fees from Fannie and Freddie?

Rejoice! Rejoice! Heller won.

Today is a great day for freedom and liberty.

Although most presidents are just politicians, today and yesterday's Supreme Court decisions illustrated the importance to have conservative appointees and hence conservative appointers.

How is death penalty a cruel and unusual punishment for child rape? I think it should be the punishment for all kinds of rape. Execution is certainly not cruel. Besides, if we widely apply capital punishment it will become very usual.

Hey Duke,

Wasn't it you that called the DOW at 11,500 a thread or two ago.
You may have missed it by a few days but it still counts. Good job.

Bap33,

I would really like to see a source for point #3. A hi-po motor is designed for a completely different purpose than a high efficiency motor. If you build a motor with huge displacement/power and then run it at 55 mph, the throttle body/intake/exhaust will be too big for efficient power at low RPM. Modern engine management and valve control techniques can make up for some of that, but there will also be a lot of extra surface area that takes away from efficiency (more cylinders and larger pistons/valves = extra friction, extra cooling surfaces). The Corvette ZR1 makes over 600HP, and a ton of effort was put into making it "green", but it still barely makes over 20mpg highway even with a huge overdrive 6th gear.

Also, rotary engines have horrible MPG and reliability in addition to emissions problems. They are a solution to a problem that never existed.

Any way I can find that old thread? I did not take notes on my year end prediction. . . (how can I search the archive?)

Once the mass is moving, one of the largest uses of energy is from pushing the air out of the way. The other is rolling friction. It still takes X amount of energy to move X mass to X volocity. Forget hills. If your driving habits are a constant, it's a wash. You go up. You come down.

Aerodynamics are a good place to start. A pound of air is 13.39 cubic feet @ 72F. Not a large volume. On your commute to work, you are pushing hundreds of thousands of pounds of air out of the way. If that load could be made insignificant, milage would skyrocket.

Small, high HP power plants could get the mass moving yet use little fuel to maintain motion. Coupled with decreased drag, boom, there you have it.

There was a guy in Modesto who took a Geo Metro and fitted it with aero skirts and was documented getting 50-60 MPG @ 65 MPH. He got over 70 MPG driving like a granny.

Not bad when you consider that the stock milage was in the high thirties.

What's most shocking is Breyer's dissent in DC v Heller.

"The reason there is no clearly superior, less restrictive alternative to the District's handgun ban is that the ban's very objective is to reduce significantly the number of handguns in the District, say, for example, by allowing a law enforcement officer immediately to assume that any handgun he sees is an illegal handgun. And there is no plausible way to achieve that objective other than to ban the guns."

DC v Heller, Breyer's dissent, pp 32.

If there's any reason LESS appropriate for violating a Constitutional right than THE CONVENIENCE OF THE POLICE I'd like to hear it.

For by this logic, we should let the cops beat a confession out of an obviously guilty criminal, the 5th Amd. be damned. Similarly, the cops should just round up all the young black men near the scene of the crime, the 4th Amd. be damned.

Dennis, it was a 5-4 decision. Let's hope that the next Supreme Court judge is appointed by a conservative president.

It is fine to confer death penalty to innocent unborn children for their mothers' promiscuity, but it is NOT fine to sentence convicted child rapists to death.

What kind of world is this?

Anyone read this book?

http://www.amazon.com/Liberal-Fascism-American-Mussolini-Politics/dp/0385511841

I saw it in a Borders and I could not put it down before finishing a whole chapter.

EBGuy,

H3 has a special notice today for applying new seasonal factor and break factor. Is that an official notice that Fed will start "massaging" ugly H3 number?
http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/h3/Current/
details here
http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/h3/hist/annualreview.htm

Gun bans only keep the guns out of the hands of honest, law abiding, people. They have no effect on criminals. And it doesn't matter if a gun is legal or illegal as far as the cops are concerned. They'll put a bullet in your head and run the serial number later.

For by this logic, we should let the cops beat a confession out of an obviously guilty criminal, the 5th Amd. be damned. Similarly, the cops should just round up all the young black men near the scene of the crime, the 4th Amd. be damned.

That would be wrong, Dennis. By their logic, criminals are true victims. :roll:

Gun bans only keep the guns out of the hands of honest, law abiding, people. They have no effect on criminals.

But many would argue (implicitly) that criminals are really the same as honest, law abiding, people. They even have more civil rights than you and me because the society has somehow wronged them.

Peter,

You speak the gospel.

Bab33: "When they really want mileage, they will no longer have power anything, no roll up windows, just plexi-glass that you slide manually. No AC. No power steering. no power brakes. no extra exhaust pipe. no radios. manual crank wipers. no cigerett plug and ash tray. A body like a salt-flats racer. No comfort, just MPG. Just the basics … like a 1944 Jeep. When I see that, I’ll think “ahhh, mileage”

Just for fun, I removed the back seat of my Camry the other day; I never use it. 60 pounds gone. I took the center console out, too, but put it back, it weighed only two pounds and is sorta useful. I will soon jettison the ashtray, glove box, air vents, etc. Anything easy to get. I thought about having the AC removed, but it would probably more money than I ever save from the weight reduction. Motors from the back door windows might be fairly easy. Lose the spare tire for a can of sealant perhaps.

My point is that I think more people are starting to take such things seriously.

Duke says:

Case=Shiller showing retrace ending early 2010 back to Mid October 2000 levels.

But I like this even better from Seeking Alpha:

You've all probably seen or heard about the recently released Harvard Housing study. Among other things, the report discusses the fact that the median wage-earner is unable to afford the median priced home and forecasts a drop in real estate prices to the 1999 level.

Savers gonna party like its 1999..............

Savers gonna party like its 1999

Like it is 1999. Then comes 2000...

In case anyone hasn't read DC v. Heller yet....
www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/07pdf/07-290.pdf

Jonah Goldberg's "Liberal Fascism" is a great book.

The author has a blog here:

http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/

Jonah says the blog has been up for a few months and he may take it down soon.

Anyway, I expected the Supreme Court to issue a 9-0 decision because the Constitution was so clear about the right to bear arms. A 5-4 decision does not offer much comfort.

I will definitely visit his blog. Thanks!

Peter,

Read the opinions. They all agree it's a personal right of individuals. The dissenters just think that the right is thin enough to encompass handgun bans.

I will read the detailed opinions tonight.

"Then comes 2000"

Ya haaaaaaad ta bring me down, didn't ya. :)

Load up your printer. It's 157 pages long. But it's worth it to have a paper copy in order to study it properly.

I did read about how Virginia residents licenced to carry in VA were getting arrested for having a gun in their car when pulled over on the interstate in DC. I presume that will no longer be an issue.

@hittybank down 1.18 to 17.67

Skankamerika down 1.80 to 24.81

What does a GM bailout look like?

GM down 1.38 to 11.43

Precedent is set, Chrysler and Bear = GM MUST BE SAVED!

Seriously-

I don't have the answer and nobody is talking about it! Anybody, what do you think a GM bailout looks like????

Also, does C and BAC end up in JPM?

Does JPM become the USA bank!

Merge all US auto makers and name them AmCar

Merger all US airlines and call them AmAir

and finally fund passenger rail in this country and call it success!

Great call, Duke on the 11,500. At the beginning of the month I said there's no doubt we'll test the year's lows. Now, that we're testing them, I got the funny feeling the lows will not hold.

It's too bad that a nice guy like Skibum appears to have gone to the dark-side and bought an over-priced piece of crap Bay Area property. My wife and I will buy when the Case-Shiller shows a 25% decline. It's pretty apparent now that we have a lot further to go. I say Case-Shiller will drop 25 - 30% nationally before prices turn up. At 25% we may be 5% too early, but that's a risk we'll take. It's looking like we have a year and a half more to go. Winter '09-'10.

I haven't read this thread fully, but the question I want to ask the Libertarian breed here is how would you see 'fees' being used to pay for our current 800+ fires burning in California? If the forrest is on fire, and there are no structures there for which a paying customer would provide the fees (and the State is not gathering the dreaded 'taxes' to pay the costs), then who exactly pays to put those out? Do we just wait for the fires to reach actual homes before the fire fighters get engaged with these 'fees'?