Radioactive Communist Zombies

Economy Not Growing . . . Much

According to a story by the AP:

The economy is still growing, just not by much. And until that changes, don't look for the jobs to come back.

Americans spent less and businesses thought twice about restocking their shelves in the past three months, making for a sluggish spring.

So why are consumers and businesses not spending?

Let me think . . .

Well, Congress passed and President Obama signed huge new regulations on health care and finances.  Added uncertainty.  Then there's the possibility of cap and trade and/or the EPA controlling CO₂ as a "danger" to human health.  More uncertainty.  There's the expiring tax cut (which will result in a huge tax hike for consumers and small businesses).  Even more uncertainty.

So people (and businesses) are not spending money 'cause they think they might need them to pay for taxes and/or regulations.  And businesses are not hiring because of the uncertainty so that means less money in consumer's pockets.

All in all, it's not surprising the economy is not growing much.  Obamanomics is all about growing the power of government, not the power of the consumer and businesses.  

Speed Cameras Are Becoming Less Common . . . Maybe

Speed cameras (see here, for example) that automatically write tickets were growing in popularity among jurisdictions.  But the joys of automatic revenue raising has lost some of its luster, according to a Fox News story:

[H]ere's some good news for  motorists who put pedal to metal: Thanks to budget cuts and emerging technologies, the use of automated radar and red-light cameras may be on the decline.

Oh?  The telling section of the piece is:

[T]he payoff may not have been as big as politicians expected, which may be the real reason some cameras are coming down.

The 76 cameras in Arizona didn't produce the revenue stream politicians had anticipated. According to the state, less than a third of the 1.2 million tickets mailed out were ever paid, which meant the government received just $78 million in fine payments -- not the $120 million it projected. Add political pressure to the equation and the disincentives to keep the cameras grew.

Because they weren't raising enough revenue, they have now lost favor with jurisdictions.  Which is more evidence that they are not safety devices, but taxation without representation.

Add in that red light cameras cause accidents, and the whole automatic ticket writing scam just doesn't seem worth it.

Save a Fish: Lose Your House

A federal judge has told the Forest Service that it needs to revisit the environmental impact of fire retardant drops to fight forest fires.  They judge said the current one isn't adequate.  The AP reports:

U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy in Missoula, Mont., ruled that the current environmental assessment is inadequate in light of federal biologists' findings that fire retardant that lands in creeks and on rare plants jeopardize the survival of endangered species and their habitat.

How often does this happen? About 0.01% of the time.  But still, the judge ruled:

The judge also found Fish and Wildlife and the fisheries service violated the Endangered Species Act by failing to include an "incidental take permit" in the biological opinion that would allow killing some endangered species. The agencies had argued they would consider permits on a case-by-case basis.

The Forest Service, for it's part, worries that if they don't do everything necessary to fight a forest fire, they could be liable for someone losing their house or their life.  Which sounds like a valid concern.

Luckily the judge hasn't said the Forest Service can't use fire retardant . . . yet.  He's given the Forest Service until the end of next year to do a more complete study on the impact of fire retardant.  Let's hope the Forest Service can placate the judge (and the environmentalist plaintiffs in the lawsuit that caused all this).  Otherwise, some people might lose their houses or their lives to protect a fish or plant.

Environmentalists always have their priorities straight and it isn't humans.

The Chevy Volt Doesn't Make Sense (or Cents)

I had planned to sit down and do the math today on the Chevrolet Volt's economics now that Government Motors has announced the sticker price of $41,000.  And let me add, that I think that's going to be low after destination charges, dealer markups, and if you want any options like, oh, leather seats (and leather seat warmers for those cold days that will cut the range substantially so they probably aren't even available).  But I digress.

I was going to do the math but (Hat Tip Instapundit) someone else already did it for me.

The bottom line (emphasis original):

Under these assumptions, best case (all electric Volt miles), you save $915/year driving the Volt. To gain back your $10,000 price premium, you will have to drive the Volt for 9.3 years, 1.3 year longer than the battery warranty.

And replacing that battery pack is going to be expensive.

 

So you're going to really want to show off your green cred or be bad at math to want a Volt.  Don't know how many folks there are out there like that (of course, the Prius doesn't pencil out, either, and Toyota is selling scads of them).

 

UPDATE: Planet Gore reports:

After driving GM’s new, plug-in electric Chevy Volt, Late Night funnyman Jay Leno quipped that “if you didn’t know, you might think it’s a Cobalt” — a reference to GM’s pedestrian, $15-grand, entry-level small car.

Ouch. Who would buy a $41,000 Cobalt? Or even a $33,500 Cobalt (federal tax credit included).

Does this mean no leather seat option?

Dry

It's a rare day I can't find anything to blog about.  But today is such a day.

So I'll leave you with a not-so-random headline:

France declares war against al-Qaida

Which begs the question, how long until France surrenders to al-Qaida?

What's a Life Worth to the U.N.? Less Than a Day

A U.N. war crimes tribunal sentences a mass murderer to 35 years for the deaths of over 16,000 people.  With time served, he'll spend only 19 years behind bars.

Thirty-five years works out to a little more than 19 hours per life.  However, the U.N. tribunal had its reasons, according to the AP:

Judges said that in handing down their verdict Monday, they took into consideration the historical context of the atrocities: The 1975-79 regime was the product of the Cold War times.

Oh, it's all the U.S. and Soviet Union's fault, then?

This is why we can't trust the U.N. to deal with terrorists, criminals, or rouge countries (i.e., Iran).  They obviously do not have the best interests of victims (or potential victims) at heart.  They would rather bash the U.S. than hand down a just sentence. 

Ethanol: Such a Bargain

Been a while since we bashed ethanol.

But the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) is now doing it for us.  The Wall Street Journal explains in an unsigned editorial:

CBO also estimates that cutting carbon emissions by one metric ton via ethanol runs to $754. To put that number in perspective, the budget gnomes estimate that the price for a ton of carbon under the cap-and-tax program that the House passed last summer would be about $26 in 2019.

(Some reports say it doesn't reduce carbon emissions at all.)

Which, of course, begs the question, why do we subsidize ethanol  (and require its use) at all?

And the answer is: Powerful farm-state Senators and the EthanolIowa caucus.

Time like these I think a benevolent dictatorship would be preferable to what we have now.  Or maybe just following the Constitution.

World Running Out of Internet Addresses?

It's a disaster 30 years in the making.

You see, the interent address for this blog is not radioactivecommunistzombies.com, it's 68.178.232.100.  That's called the IP address and there's only about 232 million of them left.

Thirty years ago, the current standard in IP address was developed and it was called IPv4.  But no one then imagined it couldn't be enough IP addresses.  As Fox News reports:

When the IPv4 protocol was developed 30 years ago, it seemed to be a reasonable attempt at providing enough addresses," carrier relations manager at Australian internet service provider (ISP) Internode John Lindsay told the Herald.

"Bearing in mind that at that point personal computers didn't really exist, the idea that mobile phones might want an IP address hadn't occurred to anybody because mobile phones hadn't been invented [and] the idea that air-conditioners and refrigerators might want them was utterly ludicrous."

So John Lindsay is predicting the world runs out of IP addresses in 340 days (July 1, 2011).

There is a solution but it's painful.  It's called IPv6 and it would give every human on Earth more than 4 billion IP addresses each.

Problem is, switching every device over to IPv6 would require all devices connected to the internet to be reconfigured or upgraded.  That's every personal computer, every server, every smart phone, every video game system, every other thing connected to the internet.  And that's going to be tough.

The stop gap measures:

In the meantime ISPs may force multiple customers to share IP addresses, which may lead to common applications, such as Gmail and iTunes, ceasing to work.

There are also fears a black market of IP addresses may spring up.  Don't know how that would work, but it might be interesting.  Hang on to those IP addresses, they might be going up in value.  I also have no idea how you might do that.

Range Anxiety

As the push comes to put more electric cars on the road (Obama wants one million by 2015) one problem is going to rear its ugly head: range anxiety.

That is, fear that the car will not go as far as needed and charging stations are few and far between.  Joel Schectman, an AP writer, tells us what the problem is:

Drivers want electric cars but worry they won't have enough juice to make long trips. After all, what good is going green if you get stranded with a dead battery?

It's a fear that automakers must overcome as they push to sell more battery-powered cars. So government and business are taking steps to reassure drivers by building up the nation's network of electric charging stations.

Range anxiety is a legitimate fear.  And partly because "refueling" takes so dang long:

Most public stations will take eight hours to juice up a car all the way, about the same as chargers in individual homes. These plugs could work for people who have chargers near their offices, but wouldn't work for quick refueling. Even a partial charge will take awhile — two-and-a-half hours to get 30 miles. A limited number of the chargers will be fast-chargers. If you can find one, it will still take 30 minutes for a full powerup.

Thirty minutes isn't bad (but a lot longer than the few minutes it takes to put gasoline in a car) but an 8-hour stop for fuel just isn't practical.

And that's the problem with electric cars.  They can still only remain commuter cars, driven short distances.  But when the family wants to drive to grandma's house or Disneyland, they are going to need an internal combustion engine to get there.  Which is why the Chevy Volt makes a little more sense but still people are probably going to need two cars.  And a lot of folks (especially after paying the premium an electric car requires) aren't going to be able to afford it.

So Obama will reach his goal only if there's enough rich fools to buy one million very impractical cars.

Is Obama Trying to Make Gasoline Expensive?

Remember $4/gallon gasoline?  It looks like the Obama Administration would like to return us to those days.  According to Mario Loyola writing in the August 2nd edition of National Review (NRODT), Obama is taking steps to cause a fuel shortage:

The moratorium on offshore drilling; the browbeating of BP into disgorging assets regardless of actual liability; the EPA’s unjustifiable quashing of licenses for most of the refineries in Texas, supposedly over air-pollution concerns;the Interior Department’s failure to process license renewals for a slew of shallow-water wells, which are much less tricky than those in deep water—all these actions bespeak a desire to create a hostile regulatory environment for oil extraction.

Why would Obama do this?

Many of Obama’s supporters—those at the Brookings Institution, for example—seem to think that a severe oil shortage is precisely what we need to save the environment and kick-start the transition to green energy.

In other words, to shock the public into demanding we spend billions on "green energy" so we don't have oil shocks like the one Obama purposely created again.

He is trying to manipulate the economy, cause you pain and cost you money, to push his political agenda.  And manipulate you into supporting it.

Which is typical of Obama's "I know best for you" attitude.  If the American people don't support something he think is best, he'll make sure they will want to.  It's a planned gasoline famine . . . for your own good.