In other news, the NBC Washington site published a big article (also on MSNBC) about air condition use in DC that fortunately highlighted my letter but unfortunately did a very poor job of reporting (and somehow got a way with a lot of editorializing).  I responded in the comments where things got really interesting, including a lovely example of Godwin’s Law.  Here is an excerpt from the article (where I am called ‘local man’) and then some choice comment highlights:

D.C. resident Nicko Margolies is rightly annoyed by the practice of many stores in the city to set their air conditioning on full blast while leaving their front doors wide open.

In a letter to the Washington Post, Margolies calls it “an extraordinarily wasteful act that strains the city’s electrical grid” that is “terrible for the environment.”

True. But Margolies isn’t just griping – he is also calling for legislation. He wants the District to “punish stores” that “blow cold air directly into the street.” He tells us that he will be contacting every member of the D.C. Council, and “hopefully starting a movement” toward legislation similar to that adopted by New York City two hot summers ago. (So far, nine New York stores have been slapped with $200 fines.

http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local-beat/Ban-AC-in-DC-98320999.html

I won’t copy the whole article, but it gets a little off base.  Here are some of the comments of support:

Hey Nicko, I feel for you. This site’s reporting ethics seem synonymous with that of communist propaganda sometimes. You had a valid point and they left it out. People would never intentionally leave their own door open with the AC on, so why should you be heckled by a utility company when businesses do it all day long? Georgetown is the worst example around here. The rest of you critics need to read deeper into these things. NBC Washington is failing to report valid points made, and that’s not something any respectable reporter would do.

[via NBC Washington comment #7]

I would love to get Mr. Margolies contact info so that I can join his efforts !

[via NBC Washington comment #9]

Mr. Margolies –
I’m glad you commented on this story and further explained your point of view. The reporter made you sound like some whacked out hippy.

[via NBC Washington comment #10]

Nicko Margolies is right and Orvetti misses the point entirely. It’s not about people’s “right” to waste (which is nonetheless deplorable), it’s about the grid and the environment.

[via MSNBC comment #4]

With the sweltering summer heat upon the city, I find myself stunned by the policies of many area retail stores to keep the air conditioning on full blast and the front doors wide-open. It is an extraordinarily wasteful act that strains the city’s electrical grid and is terrible for the environment.

Pepco recently sent a message through the D.C. government’s alert system asking residents to refrain from using power-heavy appliances during peak hours, but there is no rebuke for businesses that blow cold air directly into the street. The D.C. Council should pass legislation to punish stores because this profligate practice must go — a smart move that New York City made two years ago.

Nicko Margolies, Washington

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/11/AR2010071103118.html

According to the fantastic annual budget visualization, Death and Taxes, military spending accounted for approximately 63% (or $895 billion) of the 2011 federal discretionary budget. Now I won’t argue that this spending is wholly unjustified, I enjoy a reasonable amount of deterrence as much as the next guy and I do enjoy some sweet programs like missile defense (star wars!), but some of this stuff is manic. Here’s a stat I dug up with a few minutes of poking around. According to the Department of Defense’s own 2009 Budget Request Summary Justification [pdf link], if you completely cut only the F-35 program (instead of just re-negotiating) you could double the entire budget of the National Science Foundation [pdf link of budget proposal].

Aside from silly programs that have no practical battlefield applications, there is the outsourcing of materiel production to contractors that is troubling. Northrop Grumman, the third largest supplier of military equipment, recently had to pay $12.5 million in a settlement to the government because it didn’t properly test items for navigation systems in warplanes, submarines and space equipment. How did this get exposed? An internal whistleblower who was probably enticed by the provisions of the False Claims Act that got him almost $2.4 million. Money talks. This is just the most recent example of contractors who get too much money for shoddy work and get virtually no oversight. In my opinion, the more spending you have the more transparency you need. Is 63% of accountability and oversight dedicated to defense spending? Hell no.

The largest roadblock to this uniquely American epidemic is that cutting back on defense spending is a very sensitive political subject. People want to feel safe. The American answer to fear is spending. Big guns make you feel safe. Big guns are expensive.  Bottom line: Be very cautious to take away big guns from scared people who somehow still have a blank check.

But there is hope! And not Obama’s style of hope, but a historians style of hope! Look back and notice: it has been done before! After the cold war, defense spending fell over 25 percent between 1985 and 1993. And guess who was defense secretary? Dick Cheney!

From the Washington Post article:

Under the law, the penalty for failing to notify regulators of a safety defect is $6,000 a car. Toyota had to recall 2.3 million for the sticky pedal.

If not for the cap, that could have subjected the automaker to the $13.8 billion in fines. Among the reforms being proposed as a result of the Toyota controversy is a proposal to lift that limit.

I tracked down the law limiting fines (not named in the article) and found the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008.  According to a summary of major provisions (pdf link), the law ”increases civil penalty caps from $5,000 to $100,000 per individual violation, and from $1,250,000 to $15,000,000 for aggregate violations.”  (Also see the law itself) I wish I had time to do more research, but I would be curious to find the rationalization by lawmakers for having a ceiling for violations.  Smaller government?  Let the leaden toys and endlessly accelerating cars flow freely into our economy?

Of course, remember that there wasn’t even a fine in the 70s from the Ford Pinto going up in flames after getting in rear-end collisions. So I guess this is…progress?

The ability to work from anywhere also means snow days no longer offer a break from work. Many are like Nicko Margolies, a communications assistant at the Sunlight Foundation, a Washington-based non-profit.

With the federal government shut down, his office closed. Margolies worked at home.

“No snowstorm, no matter how big, will keep me from working. I lost heat, but I had my space heater and network access, so I kept on trucking. It’s actually a seamless transition from home to work,” he says. “The only difference is I’m in my pajamas.”

The full article is on USA TODAY. My quote was also picked up on Time Magazine’s ‘It’s Your Money’ blog and reposted on the Battle Creek Enquirer in Michigan. The image credits on this post go to NASA for this beautiful photograph taken by the Terra satellite (which I cropped).

Skip ahead to June of 2009.  Regina F. Silva, a graphic designer/illustrator in the Philippines, sends me an email asking to use the original squirrel photo as inspiration for a drawing.  Flattered and intrigued, I accept.

The shared appreciation for this entertaining creature and the tone of the Regina’s emails gave me confidence in the possibilities of this proposition.  Months later, after more friendly exchanges and a sneak peek at a draft, she launched the first item in a line of squirrel-related items.  She promised to send me the entire line of products and yesterday, I received the wonderful bounty.

I could not be more pleased with the results and I’d like to thank Miss Silva for her devotion to her beautiful designs and for letting me know about this project.  While we’re on opposite sides of the planet, it’s nice to know that there is someone else out there who wants to share humorous squirrel antics with the world.

When I excitedly opened the package from the Philippines I was touched by the note that Regina included with all the fruits of her labor (reproduced to the right).  Best of luck to you and may the squirrel products prosper!

Please check out her Etsy shop and website, both are filled with whimsical original work. I would also recommend checking out her recent blog post about how she took a leap of faith to follow her dream of becoming a graphic designer.

The public health authorities never mention the main reason many Americans have for smoking heavily, which is that smoking is a fairly sure, fairly honorable form of suicide.

Anyways, earlier today I found a piece called How to Write with Style, which I eagerly sped through.  Certainly worth the five minutes it takes to read.  The version I found was published in 1980 and starts with this advice:

Newspaper reporters and technical writers are trained to reveal almost nothing about themselves in their writings. This makes them freaks in the world of writers, since almost all of the other ink-stained wretches in that world reveal a lot about themselves to readers. We call these revelations, accidental and intentional, elements of style.  These revelations tell us as readers what sort of person it is with whom we are spending time. Does the writer sound ignorant or informed, stupid or bright, crooked or honest, humorless or playful — ? And on and on.  Why should you examine your writing style with the idea of improving it? Do so as a mark of respect for your readers, whatever you’re writing. If you scribble your thoughts any which way, your readers will surely feel that you care nothing about them. They will mark you down as an egomaniac or a chowderhead — or, worse, they will stop reading you.

Here are the headers for the piece that give an even shorter overview of his advice:

1. Find a subject you care about
2. Do not ramble
3. Keep it simple
4. Have guts to cut
5. Sound like yourself
6. Say what you mean
7. Pity the readers

Full article (PDF link)

The Project for Excellence in Journalism examined 53 outlets that regularly cover Baltimore over the course of one week last July. In looking at six major news stories, the group found that 83 percent of them — in print, television, radio, blogs and Web sites — were essentially repetitive. “Much of the ‘news’ people receive contains no original reporting,” the study says. “Fully eight out of 10 stories studied simply repeated or repackaged previously published information.”

Among the remaining stories that advanced the ball, 61 percent came from newspapers — from the Baltimore Sun to specialty publications — followed by 28 percent from local TV stations and 7 percent from radio. Twitter and local Web sites “played only a limited role: mainly an alert system and a way to disseminate stories from other places.”

The full study from the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism is quite an interesting read as well (and yes, I recognize the irony of posting this to a blog).

1) Somali Pirates Again

Last week, according to the pirates and maritime officials in Kenya, the ship’s owners finally paid $3.2 million — in cash, dropped by parachute — to free the Faina and a day later the last of the heavily armed pirates made their way off the ship.

2) Colombia Confronts Drug Lord’s Legacy: Hippos

Doraldald, Colombia — Even in Colombia, a country known for its paramilitary death squads, this hunting party stood out: more than a dozen soldiers from a Colombian Army battalion, two Porsche salesmen armed with long-range rifles, their assistant, and a taxidermist.

They stalked Pepe through the backlands of Colombia for three days in June…

3) Metro Bus Driver Takes a Bite Out of McGruff the Crime Dog

The bus driver, 38-year-old Shawn Brim, climbed out of the bus, adjusted both sideview mirrors and then slugged McGruff in the face with his closed fist, according to a police report. Because the huge McGruff head offered little visibility, Hardy didn’t see the punch coming, one officer said.

4) Man with Cocaine-Filled Chicken Busted at Dulles

Chicken a la cocaine?

Federal officials said Friday that was on the menu after a man tried to pass through customs at Dulles International Airport last week carrying a fully cooked chicken. It turned out the bird was stuffed with the drugs, they said.

“It’s the Thanksgiving holiday, and this guy is bringing in a chicken. You’d expect a turkey,” said Steve Sapp, a spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

5)  Miles for Nothing: How the Government Helped Frequent Fliers Make a Mint

At least several hundred mile-junkies discovered that a free shipping offer on presidential and Native American $1 coins, sold at face value by the U.S. Mint, amounted to printing free frequent-flier miles. Mileage lovers ordered more than $1 million in coins until the Mint started identifying them and cutting them off.

Coin buyers charged the purchases, sold in boxes of 250 coins, to a credit card that offers frequent-flier mile awards, then took the shipments straight to the bank. They then used the coins they deposited to pay their credit-card bills. Their only cost: the car trip to make the deposit.

I hope everyone has a happy new year!

The Story

This past weekend I finally took the time to try out the new S street dog park. I don’t have a dog and I’ve steered clear of the park since it opened a few months ago out of general annoyance of the smell omitted (despite fancy K9 grass), noise created and frustration with the $552,700.51 spent on it.  However, after voicing my complaints I realized I never actually went into the park. Turns out, it’s full of very friendly owners and incredibly happy pooches. After watching some cute dogs eagerly lap up some water from the water fountain specially designed for dogs, I felt like the Grinch watching all the happy creatures down in Whoville. My small heart grew three sizes that day.

I knew there would be some photo opportunities, so I brought my new camera and the rest of this week will be devoted to the dogs I saw.

The Controversy

The space for the current dog park at S and New Hampshire and 17th Street was always a dog park.  At some point there may have been people who ventured over there, but only if you enjoyed a dirt patch covered in large amounts of dog remnants. The dog owner community was lobbying and signing petitions for a fully outfitted park since early the early 2000s.  After a number of community meetings, the park was eventually approved and designs were submitted.  Even in these early meetings, a number of concerns were raised.  Here are some bullet points from the preliminary application [PDF link]:

Community concerns around the use of S Street Park as a dog park have been extensively discussed since public forums were held on the matter in 2005.

The primary concerns against the dog park involved excessive barking, late- night use, and environmental impact. In each case, the same laws that apply to human use of public parks can be applied and enforced by the dog community at large as well as public enforcement.

The designs were made, approved and the park broke ground this past summer.  However, since the park opened to much fan fare, the controversies have risen again.  According to the DC Government’s Dog Park Rules and Legislation FAQ, there is “a maximum of 30 dogs per 10,000 square feet may be in a park at one time.”  If you look up the specifics on the S street park, it is 5,600 square feet and should be limited to around 15 dogs at a time.  This is rarely observed.  On beautiful days, like this past Sunday, upwards of 30 dogs are crammed into the tiny park.  While it is usually quiet, dog fights quickly escalate and turn into a cacophony of barks and yelps, much to the dismay of anyone living nearby.  A petition went out recently in the neighborhood, asking for police enforcement of the 15 dog limit, but clearly this is a stupid use of city resources (which the park itself may also qualify under).

Most recently, someone dug up a quote from Obama about stimulus money not going to projects like dog parks, drawing attention to the massive Recovery sign at the front of the park.  Here are Obama’s words from the National Conference of State Legislatures in March 2009:

Now, no plan is perfect. And I can’t stand here and promise you that not one single dollar will slip through the cracks. But what I can promise you is that we will do everything in our power to prevent that from happening, which is why we’re building on the provisions in the Recovery Act to forbid the use of these funds to build things like dog parks.

Now, let me be clear. I don’t have anything against dog parks. [Laughter] I intend to get a dog. [Laughter] What I do oppose is building them with funds from the Recovery Act, because that’s not how we’ll jumpstart job creation, and that’s not how we’ll put our economy on a firmer footing for the future.

It’s certainly a great find for any investigative reporter and the huge sign stands in stark contrast to the quote.  It is outrageous that stimulus money went to this dog park for upper middle class yuppies, but when I tried to track down the Recovery contract I found it didn’t exist (or just as likely, wasn’t in the system).  Here is what I found on Recovery.gov:

No matter where your opinion falls, I think we can all agree that some cute dog pictures will be a welcome change to this long winded post.

One of the more powerful moments of the weekend was during a hurried walk home from the concert at the Lincoln memorial. Like every large event I’ve attended in DC, there tend to be splinter groups that piggyback on the intentions of the protest or, in this case, celebration. Often this involves a group of anarchists who cause a ruckus until the police crack down, but occasionally a small group or single individual with a sign is able to become the center of attention. On 19th street, near the Corcoran, a group similar to the Westboro Baptist Church had set up a series of signs proclaiming “God Hates Homos.”  Obviously this message ran counter to the spirit of the week’s events and riled up the crowd.  Some had gathered around them, taking photos and trying to engage in a fruitless argument.  As I approached the scene, someone in front of me began chanting, “Stop the hate!” over and over.  It quickly caught on and soon the hundreds of people passing this small hate-filled group were joined in a chorus, all smiling that they had overcome the negative message on the street.

It was moments like this that stuck me most, and I was fortunate enough to enjoy the event in the company of family and close friends.  It is in this spirit that I am dedicated a week or more to the photos I took during this past week.  Enjoy.

3) Chinese Attempts to Conceal Rampant Pollution (and its failure)

Although they possess the world’s largest weather modification program, the Chinese point to the Russians as being the most advanced. In 1986, Russian scientists deployed cloud-seeding measures to prevent radioactive rain from Chernobyl from reaching Moscow, and in 2000 they cleared clouds before an anniversary ceremony commemorating the end of World War II; China’s then president, Jiang Zemin, witnessed the results firsthand and pushed to adopt the same approach back home.

2) The Story of the Wax Cartel (and the $900 million fine) (also notable for the best supervillain name of 2008: Tibor Toth)

Most cartels operate in secrecy, destroying documents, encrypting e-mail messages or using prepaid phone cards to erase communication traces. But the paraffin cartel was rare in that some members kept minutes, and attendance lists. Cartel members e-mailed invitations and sought R.S.V.P.’s. They booked each other’s rooms and played host to open bars.

1) Somali Pirates (and its many tales)

When asked why the pirates needed $20 million to protect themselves from hunger, Mr. Sugule laughed and said, “Because we have a lot of men.”

I can’t wait to see what great stories will come out of 2009, hopefully some news a little more positive than the last.

I talked things over with others and learned that my style of investing was lovingly known as “Bottom Feeding” as I was taking advantage of the suffering of other investors.  Actually, with some more research, and an incredible article by Warren Buffett I learned my recent investing strategy is known as contrarian investing.  Buoyed by this outlook, I continued my research and came to the conclusion that I should be investing in companies that represent my values rather than simply the seemingly smart financial plays I’d made earlier.  I started looking at name brands that I knew, but my retail experiences didn’t seem to mesh with professional analysis.  Continuing my search, I’ve proudly settled on a theory of socially responsible investing.

Without going into my extensive political beliefs, I was rather shocked at some of the arguments made during the election season with regards to energy.  I am wholly dissatisfied with the pollutant output of most energy sources and I am firmly resolved on the change clean energy can usher in.  You can make economic arguments for job creation, but forcing a backwards energy technology would simply prolong the negative effects of the industry.  I am mostly referring to coal and the ludicrously labeled “Clean Coal.”  Some have argued for nuclear as a long term solution, but this fails to recognize the incredible investment of money and time required to get a single plant online.  Solar, to me, represents an increasingly efficient technology that can bring the systemic change the world needs.  There are not transportation costs, power is generated on site and storage (though rather lackluster now) is removed from the electrical circuit.  No drilling in foreign or domestic lands, no shipping, no Yucca mountain expansion, no blackouts.  It could be a simple societal process dictated by technology that is anything but simple.

Given my beliefs I embarked on a long project to track down a solar company that also represented a sound investment.  After compiling a short list I tracked the progress of each company over the course of about three weeks.  For those curious, my final four were First Solar, JA Solar Holdings, ReneSola and the SunPower Corporation.  After tracking the fluctuation and finding a balance of market cap and the business model I decided on the SunPower Corporation.  Yesterday I invested my most recent blog writing earnings in this large solar energy company that is vertically integrated.  How I fare in the market recovery hinges on the prospect that solar energy offers.

Although solidly profitable, the stock prices for these companies have plummeted just like all the others on Wall St. However that means they are terrific investment opportunities even if their earnings decline due to slowing economies and the credit crisis, he said.

[via A Green Lining in Market Meltdown]

Throughout the international financial crisis I remain optimistic as history has proven that humanity endures and progresses due to the work invested in positive movements.  But as always, this is just my two cents (hopefully worth more soon).

This situation raised questions of the changing environment of copyrights in a prolific market of computer applications as well as the dangers of previews.  Thanks to widespread coding knowledge, innovative applications can be recreated and even improved upon before the original is even brought to the market.  Beyond slight changes in GUIs, it has become a crowded competition of principles that ultimately benefits the consumer by driving down cost (or in this case eliminating it altogether).

In a letter to Isaac McPherson on copyrights and invention, Thomas Jefferson stated, “It is the principle…which constitutes the invention, not the form…nor the manner…nor the material.”  While this rather outdated reflection (August 13, 1813) doesn’t have much resonance on the market today, it was an intellectual argument at the fundamentals of copyright law.  I find it compelling that even amongst the rapid competition for innovative applications, companies are willing to showcase unreleased software.  Odds are it has a lot to with generating positive publicity for their soon-to-be-released products, but it clearly is a risk as Tapulous lost big time with their iPhone contact exchange application gamble.  The fundamentals of software competition are strong, even if the benefits may be lacking.

The Good Model: Hulu
Hulu is a relatively new website that takes copyrighted material like TV shows and movies, uploads them on to the internet and provides them to the public for free. This concept is not new at all, illicit and freely available piracy sites come and go daily. What sets Hulu apart is that it’s legal and even encouraged by the copyright holders.  Unlike sites like YouTube that scrambled to make videos profitable, Hulu formulated a model and stuck to it as the traffic poured in (but it is important to note they had $100 million in venture capital backing them).  Short video ads are interspersed with the vast amount of content to make money and scale based on the length of each clip, episode or feature film.  I hate advertising as much as the next person, but when it’s a 15 second break between the Daily Show in HD, I will gladly endure.  I see this as the future of television, I just hope they can keep it as profitable and smooth as it seems now.

The Bad Model: Remember the Milk
What makes me sad about this business model is that I love this little web application.  It’s a simple idea of an online to do list to aid forgetful people in everyday mistakes, like remembering the milk.  It has a heartwarming story and is run by some nice playful people, but they have a truly crummy model when it comes to making a profit.  The photo on the right is taken from their website and is the explanation of why users should sign up for a “Pro” account.  Many sites have this approach (Flickr, gmail, etc), but Remember the Milk cuts the basic services and forces you to pay for them instead of adding new features.  Let me explain further.  Gmail and Flickr add the storage space available to you.  They implemented this by keeping the great free services consistent and just adding these features under a new account header that appeals to heavy users.  Remember the Milk took the basic concept of a to do list and ported it onto phones, but than revoked those features and slapped on a ludicriously high $25 a year price tag.  I say ludicrously high because on principle, a to do list should not have a subscription based business model.  This is software, that could even be implimented offline, not a service that requires continued fees.  ISPs, cable and phone companies all have legitimate reasons to have continued fees (don’t get me started on text messages, I could rant about that for a while).  The bottom line is that Remember the Milk is a poor excuse for the Freemium business model because they have yet to impliment premium features worthy of their price tag.

Last Word: It’s hard for me to judge these businesses when I’m pouring myself into a blog that isn’t ad supported and is mostly a drain on my free time and money.  Luckily, I enjoy doing this and I do it for my own satisfaction (which is why I took a month to tell anyone it even existed), but if I come up with a simple business model, who am I to turn it down.  In the meantime I’ll be waiting for the right job offer, partnership or other opportunity to come my way.

The discussion for the week is all about getting ready for school.  Am I mentally prepared?  Sure, why not.  Do I have a way to get there?  As of two days ago, yes.  Have I started packing?  No.  That’s where I get lost.  Packing is a singular action that takes an hour at most.  I don’t need to prepare to start, dive in and then take breaks, only to return to the task like a dreary coal miner.  You just take your stuff and transfer it into a bag.

I am flabbergasted at people who lay things out or think through the process like a you’re chosing a life partner amongst a lineup.  I’m also lost at people (read: women) who bring so much stuff.  If anything, that makes the process so much easier.  Dump it in some luggage or just cram it in the car.  I eagarly await the usual image of freshman showing up on campus with cars stuff like a tube of cookie dough.  Just one prick of a toothpick and it all spills out.

At first I thought this was a comical story of a distraught housewife who couldn’t cope with small changes to her routine and maybe, just maybe, it was worthy of a local news story…but the New York Times?  Turns out, this is actually a big deal in America.  Retailers are running an opinion poll about the new design and Sam’s Club even went so far as to offer “Milk Pouring Classes.”  Before going off on some rant about the density of the American consumer, I’d just like to say that I’ve been using this newfangled contraption since it’s debt and my reaction was simply, “Huh? Crazy looking jug.”  End of story for me.  I had no idea that there were all these environmental benefits and I had even less of an idea of the militant opposition brewing in America’s heartland.

The point of this piece is this: if someone comes out with a design that improves upon the old one, it should be released and accepted.  It would be one thing if it’s fashion or some sector based at all on appearances, but milk jugs are nowhere near that spectrum.  One of the designers on the project stated “We designed this bottle all about the function…it’s designed to be exactly what it is should be, tight compact and fitting a function. It’s not [meant] to be a bottle of wine.”  I say, let the new jug travel far and wide, bringing bovine lactate throughout the land.  For the naysayers, learn to tilt the jug instead of pouring upsidedown or however you could mess up pouring milk (I’m looking at you Amy Wise).

Run by the Weather Modification Department, a division of the Chinese Academy of Meteorological Science, the program employs and trains 32,000 to 35,000 people across China, some of them farmers, who are paid $100 a month to handle anti-aircraft guns and rocket launchers.The heavy weapons are used to launch pellets containing silver iodide into clouds. Silver iodide is thought to concentrate moisture and cause rain. The process is known as cloud seeding and China has invested heavily in it, using more than 12,000 anti-aircraft guns and rocket launchers in addition to about 30 planes.

With the Olympics nearing and international attention turning to such a tightly controlled region, China hopes to show that beneath it’s rough shell it is actually full of happy beautiful people, big glossy buildings and endless rays of sunshine.  Impact Lab writes:

Modifying the weather may seem a hubristic exercise. But arguably, given what else the Chinese have already invested to make this year’s Olympics a showcase for China’s emergence as a 21st-century superpower, it’s almost the least they could do. Following the announcement in 2001 that the 2008 Games had been awarded to Beijing, the government of the People’s Republic initiated $40 billion of new construction there, bringing 120,000 Chinese migrant workers into the city (at about $130 each a month) and triggering a five-year steel shortage worldwide. Today, Beijing boasts, alongside the vast Bird’s Nest, megastructures like a new airport terminal that on its own is bigger than any airport elsewhere in the world.

In the past few months, China’s campaign to clean up smog has gotten a lot of attention.  A New York Times article detailed the shutdown of all factories and construction around Beijing.  It was a huge effort and while it’s effects on the smog are negligible, it couldn’t hurt to even temporarily cease the most unrestricted polluter in the world.  In the end, it failed.  Failed badly.  So badly in fact, that now Beijing is going to go to the “emergency backup plan.”  This involves moving from only allowing cars with even numbered license plates to banning 90% of Beijing’s 3.3 million vehicles.  A post from TreeHugger explains further:

To qualify as a “blue sky day,” which Beijing says is safe for athletes, the Air Pollution Index, which typically measures small particulate matter, or PM10, must be below 101. For the past few days, as you can see in the chart below, it’s been higher than that; today it was 113…Beijing’s pollution monitoring system has come under fire for being misleading, whether it’s because of its nomenclature (“blue sky day” doesn’t mean blue skies, and “fog” or “haze” doesn’t mean smog)…calling Beijing’s average API of 100 acceptable seems just egregiously wrong. That’s 6.5 times the World Health Organization guideline for long term exposure.

And as a public health professor noted at BeijingAirBlog, “anything above Chinese API=50 is very unhealthy. Even if it is at API=50, that is still more than double New York City usual levels, so that is not acceptable either. They really need to get the API down to 25 or below to call the air acceptable for Olympic competition.”

What I find most interesting is that only in such a restrictive society could these kind of government controls actually be enforced.  I can’t wait to see what gets exposed and how hard China works during the games to get the kind of image they are hoping for.  If it’s anything like the weather it won’t be good news for anyone.

Eventually my infatuation with cars led me to a show that I instantly fell in love with, a British phenomenon known as Top Gear.  It’s dry humor and infectious love of all things automotive made us a perfect match.  I’ve been following it for years and yesterday they aired another one of their epic races.  The premise is essentially that the most conservative member of the show, Jeremy Clarkson, will take a beautiful exotic car and race it against other modes of transportation to prove the car is superior.  The car always wins.  Some people have debated whether the races are staged, but the BBC (and Clarkson) insist they are real.  On a recent post from the show’s blog, Clarkson writes:

During our race to Oslo, the poor cameraman in the back of the tracking car had to pee in a bottle. We do not stop.  In the Ferrari versus plane race to Verbier, I actually overtook the tracking car, leaving me with nothing but the on board mini cams. I was that desperate to get there first.  And we get back to be accused of fakery by some internet dweeb. It makes my effing teeth itch with rage.

I completely digress, but one part of the episode focused on the fantastic technology behind the famous bullet trains in Japan.  The format of the epic race episodes is essentially a glorified review of the car paired with the two other hosts explaining the grandeur of their chosen form of travel.  While flying along at 200 mph on the bullet train, James May and Richard Hammond (the two other hosts of the show) explain the brilliance (and insanity) of punctual Japanese train travel.  One interaction struck me:

James May: The average delay on the Tōkaidō Shinkansen two years ago, that’s the one we’re on, six seconds.
Richard Hammond: Six seconds?!
James May:  They’re electric obviously, the trains, but they actually have a motor in every single carriage rather than just power cars to keep the weight distribution even cause that reduces wear on the rails.

This kind of engineering is phenomenal and shows a uniquely Japanese attention to detail, but it could easily be spread to other railway networks.  While traveling in Europe I took complete advantage of the broad and cheap system of trains.  The unoriginality of this journey did not diminish it one bit.  It’s an American tradition, at some point in the first half of your life you buy a EuroRail Pass and amble through the countries with some friends.  I won’t claim to have come up with it, but it is a tried and true way to get some epic stories.

During this process I got to experience the full spectrum of train travel.  In the UK, trains were efficient, comfortable and advance (free WiFi!).  However, on a train ride to Budapest I got to experience the all the modernity that the former Soviet Bloc has to offer.  I won’t delve into details, but our train (which we occupied for more than 10 hours) had the heat blowing full blast, forcing people to take frequent refuge in the space between cars for a noisy but drastically cooler experience.  One thing I noticed was that rail travel was an institution that was accepted as a practical way to get around.  Sure it wasn’t on bullet trains, or even on a Eco-friendly technology, but it gets the job done.  It moved many people quickly and cheaply from point A to point B.

Back in America, we tend to scoff at train travel as outdated and inefficient.  And frankly, in the US, it is.  The heavily subsidized network is ridiculous, we have more track laid than anywhere in the world and our empire was built on the wealth this technology created.  Gilded with trains, we somehow jumped off the track.  Subway systems are well and good, but offer no larger solution to travel.  My interest was piqued today, but a fantastic and short journal of a trip cross country on our “terrible” train system.

The American passenger rail—once a model around the globe—is now something of an oddball novelty, a political boondoggle to some, a colossal transit failure to others. The author James Howard Kunstler likes to say that American trains “would be the laughing stock of Bulgaria.” The numbers show just how far this once-great system has fallen. In 1960, U.S. rail travelers logged 17.1 billion passenger miles (the movement of one passenger one mile), the standard measure of a system’s reach; by 2000, that number had fallen to 5.5 billion, just one percent of the total travel between U.S. cities that year.

All this discussion makes me wonder where to go from here.  I’m not exactly sure, but I think the exponential increases in gasoline prices will lead people to drive less and seek out alternatives.  Public transportation is the immediate answer, but intercity and cross country travel are the next sectors to see massive increases in traffic.  To accommodate the increase America should invest in new technology like that seen in Japan and start to adapt to a solution.  I picture something like Roosevelt’s New Deal, invest a huge amount in our future by strengthening the country’s infrastructure.  There are other bigger concerns (healthcare, cough cough), but that’s for another rant.  It’s not possible now, because we, as a culture, can’t see more than 5 years down the road, but as trends continue, cars will be impractical.  I honestly hope we can transition into a car culture with hybrid and electric cars (I’m picturing Telsa not Prius), but who wouldn’t want to travel across the country at 200 mph, taking in panaromic views while reclining in a sleeper car?