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The Greenest Detroit Auto Show Ever

[ Add A Comment ]Posted on January 14, 2010 by admin in Clean & Green, Technology

Thursday, January 14th, 2010

Ford’s Better Ideas Make Other Carmakers Green With Innovation


This guy may be a little disappointed
if he bought the “chick magnet” pitch

While it’s usually the concept cars that grab a lot of attention at the Detroit Auto Show, this year, it’s the REAL cars that are stealing the show. And there’s probably a message in the fact that two of the biggest stars at the 2010 Show are companies that didn’t accept bailout money to float the top-heavy, profit starved, gas-guzzling monstrosity that is the Detroit auto business. It’s inspiring that amidst the rather bleak economic environment that is Michigan, there’s a lot of hope and inspiration for a smarter, cleaner future for the industry, and Ford in particular is leading the way. After being the only of the big three to refuse bailout money last year, they were also the only one to enjoy a 33% sales rise in December! Now, they’re sweeping the auto show in a big way; their Fusion Hybrid and Transit Connect won the North American Car and Truck of the Year respectively. While the Transit Connect is neither hybrid nor electric, it’s part of the One Ford initiative, which will – among other things – bring the hipper fuel-efficient vehicles previously only available abroad to the states. Like the Fiesta, which we complained about some time ago. And there’s another unexpected force making a splash this year: The Chinese BYD hybrid. Go ahead and sneer at a Chinese-made car, but if you’re old enough, you may remember back when Japanese products were the low-quality laughingstock of global markets, and we all know how that ended up. BYD is no factory town upstart; one of the company’s major backers is Warren Buffet, who describes the company’s CEO Wang Chuan-Fu as a cross between GE’s Jack Welch and Thomas Edison. This CNN Money piece explains how the guy has so much faith in his company’s commitment to a green approach that he’ll drink the cars’ battery fluid to drive the point home. In my opinion, this is capitalism at its best: tough times driving innovation. And although the Transit Connect may not be a “chick magnet”, as Ford CEO Alan Mulally has suggested, this more in-depth Business Week piece gives you some insight into why Mulally’s vision may just turn Ford back into a world leader. Though they may have to fight with the Chinese to pull it off. Read the rest of this entry »

Start The Resolutions Without Me

[ 1 Comment ]Posted on January 2, 2010 by admin in Lifestyle & Culture

Saturday, January 2nd, 2010

The new year is a great time to make a new start, but use some smarts. And of course, don’t make resolutions for other people. Unless they’re Karl Rove.

With a current national debt of over 12 trillion dollars and with 67% of Americans classified as overweight, I guess it’s fitting that two of the most popular New Year’s resolutions are to lose weight and get out of debt. Why people don’t think of these things the other 364 days of the year perplexes me somewhat, but I must admit I’ve occasionally wished I were Chinese American, so I could have two rapidly consecutive chances to start the year right. I generally get by okay these days with one New Year though, and without making New Year’s resolutions. At least in the conventional sense. I typically review the year that’s ending and plan for the one ahead in a goal-oriented fashion. I also try to make my own resolutions, and not other people’s. I’ll make an exception in Karl Rove’s case though, since this year he felt compelled to make a list of resolutions for all of Washington and none for himself. Here you go Karl, it’s a short list, but will be nearly impossible for you to conquer: 1) Shut up. You’re a smart and influential gay guy, but your intelligence and influence benefit nearly no-one, and 2) Come out of the closet. Instead of getting all weak-kneed and lap-doggish around men of power in Washington, trying doing it at the gay bar once in a while. You’ll be a much happier guy. But I digress. If you made some last minute resolutions, especially in a champagne-induced stupor, rethink things. The basic psychology behind what works and doesn’t work with resolutions is covered quickly in this PychCentral.com piece, and for some thought-provoking ideas for more sustainable approaches to personal change, check out 6 Ways to Start the New Year Doing Instead of Dreaming at DumbLittleMan.com. Personally, I have two broad goals for the year; one is to simplify my life in the interest of being more at peace, and the other is to find a better balance between income and personal reward in my work. These two concepts help me frame a lot of other strategies in my ongoing activities in a positive way. So what about you? Any plans, hopes, dreams, or resolutions for the new year? Read the rest of this entry »

2010 The Year Is Bound To Be Better Than 2010 The Movie

[ Add A Comment ]Posted on January 1, 2010 by admin in Popular Media

Friday, January 1st, 2010

But don’t let that stop you from watching it as you nurse your hangover on the sofa.

Since one of America’s traditional New Year’s Day pastimes is vegetating on the sofa and watching really bad movies as you recover from a brutal night of partying, this New Year, consider tracking down a copy of 2010, the movie. Sure, you can watch the world end in 2012 in 2010 (March 2nd, to be precise), but why not watch a world begin when a movie ends now? Those last few sentences will make total sense if you watch the movie. I experienced a profound disappointment when 2001 rolled around, and we weren’t using e-ink to read magazines or riding Pan Am shuttles to an orbiting Hilton as depicted in 2001: A Space Odyssey, but I’ve since adjusted. But I was a little curious as to how the movie 2010 had depicted the future. To their credit, they got a couple of things right (mostly by avoiding showing many everyday devices) but in other ways they were way off. Yes, Jupiter’s moon Europa may have life, and governments still lie and cheat and manipulate scientists’ gullibility, but in the film they still have the US and Russia in a cold war, teetering on the edge of nuclear conflict because of a blockade on Honduras. Who’d have guessed that just five years after the movie was made, the Berlin Wall would come down, and an era of Glasnost would begin? The everyday technology they *did show in the film was a little hit or miss in terms of accuracy. The laptop Roy Scheider’s character uses on the beach isn’t too far off, but the only desktop monitors in the film look sort of like bulky 70′s TV’s that have been restyled by Apple (which is, in fact, probably what they are). The arrival of a thinking, talking computer is still years away in real life (except our artificial intelligence program here on Dissociated Press) so it was perhaps appropriate that the one in the film is the size of an antique china buffet. And it was a little preposterous that the scientist in the movie rebooted the original HAL 9000 in minutes; I’ve spent longer waiting for XP to boot after a crash! All in all, the film is a mixed bag, with some decent acting, scripting, and shooting (although the cinematography looks almost childish in comparison to Kubrick’s 2001) that suffers a bit from 80′s overtones. The counterpart computer to HAL, for instance, is a girl named SAL; scientist Heywood Floyd’s house has dolphins swimming around in indoor pools, and there’s an overall feeling of having borrowed props from the Alien set. But this is just the perfect thing to watch on the sofa with a screaming hangover! Read the rest of this entry »

Auld Lang Syne, Two-Thousand-Nine

[ Add A Comment ]Posted on December 31, 2009 by admin in Holidays

Thursday, December 31st, 2009

There are so many things we could say about 2009 and the last decade, but let’s not. Let’s just look forward to another year and decade of exciting new possibilities.


Um, maybe not.

All in all, 2009 wasn’t so bad. It was better than 2008 anyway, which was – according to many sources – the worst year ever. And it has the perk of being the end of a pretty scary, if un-nameable, decade. So tonight, we might as well party like we only do once in a blue moon, because, well… it is one. Personally, I’ll be observing a moment of silence for the folks that had built an industry around those New Year’s Eve party glasses with the zeroes as the eyes; they’re screwed. I’ll also be wishing I wasn’t so strapped for cash, because I’d go buy the domain howdoyousay2010.com and set up a single serving site. For now, you can just visit TwentyNot2000.com for similar results. So how DO you say 2010, anyway? Everybody was so anxious for the “oughts” to be over so they could start saying “teen”, but no-one seemed to remember the fact that the first three years of the teens aren’t. Aren’t teens, that is. 10, 11, 12 —fully one-third of the decade doesn’t end in “teen”. Oh well, we have a couple of years to figure that out, and then it won’t matter anyway, right? So have a blast tonight whatever you do, just don’t overdo it. We’re looking forward to an ever better time in 2010, how about you?

You May Already Be A Wiener

[ 2 Comments ]Posted on July 21, 2009 by admin in Holidays

Tuesday, July 21st, 2009

It’s National Hot Dog Month, but frankly, I think PETA’s winning the PR battle with their suggestion to put something different between your buns


Lettuce pause for a moment
to ponder PETA’s tofu
tube steak suggestions

Whenever someone asks me if there are any foods I don’t eat, I always forget to mention hot dogs, because, er, frankly, I don’t think of them as food. Although I’ll eat one once in awhile, I put them in the same category as Twinkies or a McMeal Deal: a thing I will chew and taste and swallow if there’s no actual organic matter around. But ignore my foodie pretensions. This is America, and it’s National Hot Dog Month, for cryin’ out loud. So grab a white bread bun, some French’s mustard, and stick a wiener in your mouth. To make sure you’re doing it up right, download a copy of the 2009 Hot Dog Month Planning Guide (6.1MB PDF), and to satisfy your appetite for tube steak knowledge, grab a copy of Frank Facts About Hot Dogs while you’re at it. They use appetizing phrases like “meat trimmings”, “stainless steel choppers blend the meat”, and “processed intestines” to further seduce you. And did you know that Americans will eat about 2 billion hot dogs this month? If we did our math correctly, those hot dogs laid end-to-end would reach 189,393 miles, which is about 4/5 of the way to the moon. So, while July 22 is National Hot Dog Day, I think the National Hot Dog & Sausage Council needs to hire a new PR firm. Although they had enough savvy to create a Facebook Fan Page and a YouTube channel PETA already seems to have stolen their thunder by protesting on Capitol Hill July 16. And since we’ve given so much time to wieners and dogs today, let’s give equal time to breasts and monkeys with the Breasts Not Animal Tests game. I scored 33,375 points, but the breasts just came too fast at the end. Got any interesting hot dog or sausage links to share?

Read the rest of this entry »

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