Webstring Plus Django
I plan to do a small project using Django. This is here to remind me to use Webstring as the templating engine.
By: Colonel Nikolai
Fri Aug 15 17:15:12 CDT 2008
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Filed under: technology->software->internet->web->mvc->django
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McCain, be honest: We can't drill our way to lower gas prices
John McCain is trying to leverage uniformed anger at pump prices against Obama. Giving up on his "straight talk", he's blaming Obama's stance on offshore drilling as being a root cause of higher prices.
Reality check: The DOE says the total amount of proven reserves in the US offshore holdings represents approximately 8 months of world wide consumption. The DOE also reported that it will take two decades of drilling to have any effect on domestic oil prices. At the very least, it will take years before the first of it is available for refinement. Last I checked, offshore drilling on US coastal waters is not a government program, it is a for-profit venture. Therefore this oil will go onto the world market for sale, which is why its effect on domestic oil prices are so blunted. So there is little that government can do to lower gas prices that doesn't involve a subsidy, which would be crazy; subsidizing gas prices is what caused the massive spike in prices recently because there was no commensurate reduction in consumption.
It's time for all of us to realize that high prices are the only thing that reduces consumption. The Federal Highway Administration reported that in the first 5 months of 2008, Americans drove 30 billion fewer miles than they did during the same period the previous year. We should instead of considering a reduction in gas taxes, consider a gas floor tax: use taxes to keep the price of gas above 4 dollars a gallon even if it falls below that on the world market. Use the tax revenues gained for anything you want! Use it to balance the budget! Fund alternative energy! Use it to build stadiums! Shore up medicaid/social security! Use it to develop a better oatmeal cookie recipe, you pick! Whatever we can do to get people to stop driving less and make different choices, because price is the only thing that changes this behavior.
By: Colonel Nikolai
Sun Aug 10 11:43:45 CDT 2008
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Filed under: politics->peakoil
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Re: McCain, be honest: We can't drill our way to lower gas prices
Exactly. Except for the conclusion of anything other than a free market :). To quote the Economist, "The problem with U.S. energy prices is not the current high oil prices, but the historically low oil prices." Our subsidies have kept price too low and we've organized our infrastructure around an unsustainable and unjustifiably low price.posted by: Hamlet , on Mon Aug 11 09:01:44 CDT 2008
Free market or "Free" market
posted by: Colonel Nikolai, on Mon Aug 11 12:26:10 CDT 2008So are you one of those Market Fundamentalists? (Meaning: the market has magical powers that can cure all of societies ills, ie, the market as a fetish).
Re: Honest
posted by: BalRog , on Mon Aug 11 17:10:31 CDT 2008I think we are long past the point where one can say "McCain, be honest" other than ironically.
In other news, I suspect we will be ready for gas at $7/gallon within 2 years, and nostalgic for it in 10 years.
Re: Re: Honest
posted by: Colonel Nikolai, on Mon Aug 11 17:44:44 CDT 2008Well, that would make my 4 dollar floor pointless, wouldn't it? I want to also say that the 30 billion miles we didn't drive this year so far is the first reduction in gas use in a generation which by any estimation is startling.
Wish Hamlet would come back and comment on my very leading question. Or maybe it was too flame-batey.
On the issue of "the ownership economy" and "free markets", the New Yorker recently published an awesome story of summing up what constitutes too much ownership, based on writings in the book The Gridlock Economy by Michael Heller. Good fodder for this discussion.
Re: The $4 Floor
Colonel said:posted by: BalRog , on Mon Aug 11 18:10:35 CDT 2008
Well, that would make my 4 dollar floor pointless, wouldn't it?Well, that is not what I meant. And I certainly don't think a $4 floor would do us any harm. But the only reason prices are less than $4 now is that we are near the end of the systolic season of gas price pressure and starting the diastolic season. Of course, that also means that we will soon be entering the systolic season of natural gas and heating oil price pressure.
I want to also say that the 30 billion miles we didn't drive this year so far is the first reduction in gas use in a generation which by any estimation is startling.That reduction is happening in a fairly healthy way in the major northern urban centers, but not so much in rural south and desert/wilderness west. There the reduction in usage is more like a white flag of surrender than like an orderly retreat, more like going to bed without supper than like pushing away from dessert, more like falling off of the unemployment rolls because you gave up than like falling off because you settled for less pay.
Overheard: Generation Gap
Son: So let me get this straight: when you were a kid in school they taught you that when there was a nuclear attack, that you had to get under your desk, right?Dad: That's right, son.
Son: And this is the same place that taught you everything else you know?
By: Colonel Nikolai
Sat Aug 09 16:47:34 CDT 2008
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Filed under: culture->politics->genxversusboomer
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Re: Overheard: Generation Gap
posted by: BalRog , on Mon Aug 11 17:42:06 CDT 2008I'm sort of a "late boomer", coming up in the '60s rather than the '50s. I don't know about you, but they never taught that in my schools, including my first elementary school in Hampton, VA.
Back in the '60s that school was within a 10 mile radius of AF Tactical Air Command HQ, Army Transport Command HQ, NATO HQ, Newport News Shipbuilding (the only place in the USA with dry docks big enough to construct nuclear carriers), 3 major naval bases, a Nike ABM site, and the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay. So if ever there were schoolkids that needed to know how to use their desks to protect them from gamma rays, we were them.
Or maybe they figured that we didn't need to worry, since those Nikes were going to stop all the incoming nukes.
50's or 60's
Well, that begs the question: did they stop teaching the duck and cover in the 50's or 60's. I think the 50's, which your experience would support.posted by: Colonel Nikolai, on Wed Aug 13 12:58:21 CDT 2008
Anecdotal evidence, exhibit C
Colonel said:posted by: BalRog , on Wed Aug 13 13:53:17 CDT 2008I think the 50's, which your experience would support.My high school English teacher (in the 1978) once told us that back in the '50s the school required her to practice these stupid drills with her classes (supporting the hypothesis). She said that she became notorious for carefully reading the prepared statement, and then opining "If that isn't the biggest load of hooey I've ever heard in my life, I don't know what is."
Path back to health #1
So I'm in my third week of my program. I work out Monday Wednesday and Friday.
- I start by doing a simple aerobic row for 5 minutes as a warm up
- then a leg curl till momentary muscular failure (MMF)
- a leg extension to MMF
- a seated row to MMF
- a bench press to MMF
- a lying pullover to MMF
- a seated stomach crunch to MMF
- a 5 minute aerobic row to cool down
I added two more exercises this week: seated calf raise and shoulder shrug. The calf raise is kind of a joke: the machine doesn't have enough weight for me to get to MMF. Not sure about the shrug, either. Should I buy the 200 more pounds of power rods?
The results? I seem to have lost about 4 lbs. I'm not sure, but I seem to be stronger, too: the amount of weight I can handle in a given exercise has gone up between 10-50 lbs. I have also cut down coffee drinking to 1 cup per day. Not because I think I drink too much coffee, but it just didn't make me feel good having a second cup since I started working out, it's weird. I generally feel much better. It also seems to have had an emotional effect on me. I'm more even keeled. Things that used to really get me steamed now seem to just float by.
One other thing I noticed: I'm drinking a lot more water and eating sensible meals at sensible hours. I find if I stop eating and drinking by 7PM, I'm stronger in the morning for my workout and I feel much better throughout the day.
By: Colonel Nikolai
Wed Aug 06 17:42:15 CDT 2008
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Filed under: science->fitness
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