February, 2009 archive
Bump-and-Gen 0
Well, if PECO can call their trash-to-steam plant “trash to cash,” I guess this might be “smash to cash”:
(snip)
The ramps – which cost between £20,000 and £55,000, depending on size – consist of a series of panels set in a pad virtually flush to the road. As the traffic passes over it, the panels go up and down, setting a cog in motion under the road. This then turns a motor, which produces mechanical energy. A steady stream of traffic passing over the bump can generate 10-36kW of power.
Mythbustin’ 0
Click and learn. A nugget:
Oh really? I’m sure they’d love to have a presentation on that at the next meeting of the American Economic Association. Maybe the senator could use that opportunity to explain why a dollar spent by the government, or government contractor, to hire doctors, statisticians and software programmers is less stimulative than a dollar spent on hiring civil engineers and bulldozer operators and guys waving orange flags to build highways, which is what the senator says he prefers.
Via Susie.
Rule of the Lawless 0
Big Brother was (and probably still is*) listening in. From On the Media:
Follow the link to hear the story or listen here:
______________________
*This is not directed at Mr. Obama, but rather at the strongest force in organizational dynamics: inertia.
Stimulus Analysis Overstimulated 0
Calm down all ready, suggests the Booman.
Frankly, I do not think we have a 24-hour news cycle, not here in politically-oriented Blogistan (left or right).
We have a 24-hour hysteria cycle.
Not every event in every day is the life or death of the Republic, for heaven’s sake.
The Cost of Unemployment Compensation 0
This is just screwy: Pennsylvania started moving its umployement compensation to debit cards. The hook: you get your payments weeks faster than if you opt for checks or direct deposit.
And guess what?
You get to pay for the privilege of getting unemployement benefits with fees to the ATM card issuer (some outfit called ACS State & Local Solutions Inc.):
Yes, fees. Fees to withdraw unemployment benefits. Fees to transfer. Fees to learn that besides being out of work, you’re broke.
(snip)
The unemployment debit card touts one free withdrawal per month at Wachovia or PNC Bank.
Bank elsewhere or more often, and you’ll pay $1.50 for the privilege of getting your money. Maybe more, depending on “surcharges.”
Weather Weirdness (Updated) 0
Two days ago it was 22 Fahrenheits.
Today it’s already 62 Fahrenheits.
Addendum:
It seems to have topped out at 66 Fahrenheits.
Kitchen. No Girlfriend. 0
And no “My Girlfriend’s Kitchen” any more. (It also appears that the company has been gobbled up by someone else.)
Closed. Kaput. All gone.
Delaware disappeared from their list of locations.
When I first saw the business and looked it up on the inner tubes, my gut reaction was, “Yeah. Right. People are really going to come to this here storefront and cook a week’s worth of meals and take them home with them for the week.”
Morning Joke 0
This morning, Joe Scarborough was on Weekend Edition Saturday. (You can listen to the interview here.)
Among other things, he bleated about not expecting Obama to take off the gloves so quickly, as if, somehow, Mr. Obama was being gratuitously partisan.
Combating intransigence requires firmness.
In observing Republicans in their natural habitat, one must watch their actions and discount their words.
Scarborough left out the part about the Republican Party’s party-line intransigence, their insistence on demonstrating fealty to their corporate masters and to clinging to the policies of de- and non-regulation, tax cuts for the rich and big business, and tolerance of lawlessness, so long as it is the rich who are acting lawlessly, policies that have not just failed, but that have proven inimical to the safety and welfare of the nation and its citizens.
Then there’s that Great and Glorious Patriotic War for a Lie in Iraq.
Yes, quite the upstanding little group of folks.
Once again, disregard their words and watch their actions.
Republicans define “bipartisanship” and “compromise” as getting what they want the way they want it.
Nothing else does for them.
Q. E. D.
Don’t Give a Hoot 4
A bit of a fuss down the road over a new Hooters (emphasis added):
Marc Clymer, president of the Meadowood Civic Association that represents the neighborhood behind the shopping center, echoes those concerns.
If it were named Scooters and everything else were the same, there would be less fuss. Hooters is really rather innocuous compared to any Delaware beach in July.
The fuss about Hooters had more to do with its name than with the activities.
Downsized 3
Their cookie is goosed:
Popular cookie varietiessuch as Thin Mints, Do-si-Dos and Trefoils now contain from two to four fewer cookies per box. And the Lemon Chalet Cremes, which last year were rectangular, now are round and slightly smaller.
And they were already, ounce for ounce, the most expensive cookies normal folks buy with any regularity.
Trucked 3
Back when lived in Arlington, Va., I used to see a monster vehicle that, rather than a truck body, waaaay up there above those huge tires, eight or ten feet in the air, had the body of a Chevy Vega.
But that does not beat this.
Profanity Fails Me 0
Please read Mr. Cole’s observations.
Brendan sums it up:
And why not? after all, it’s only the little people who suffer.
Another More Dustbiters (Updated)
0
The fundamentals of the economy are sound(ing hollow). Follow the link and S-E-C for yourself (emphasis added):
Birmingham, Ala.-based Regions Bank has agreed to assume all of FirstBank’s deposits and purchase roughly $17 million of the failed bank’s assets, the FDIC said.
Federal regulators shut down a bank in Southern California and another in the Atlanta area on Friday, bringing the number of U.S. failures this year to eight, while marking the 33rd collapse since the recession began.
McDonough, Ga.-based FirstBank Financial Services and Culver City, Calif.-based Alliance Bank were seized, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.
Birmingham, Ala.-based Regions Bank has agreed to
assume all of FirstBank’s deposits and purchase roughly $17 million of the failed bank’s assets, the FDIC said.
In other news, the green line is Bush 43’s:
Addendum:
The little indie pizza place across from the restaurant where I ate supper has given up the ghost.
The little sewing store just up the road has ditto.
One of the little businesses in the office building at the foot of the street ditto.
All within the past few weeks.
Republican Economic Theory works. It does, indeed, make the poor poorer.
Must Be That Pesky UAW Again 0
Toyota said its operating loss will likely widen to 450 billion yen ($4.95 billion) for the fiscal year ending March 31. In December, the Nagoya-based automaker forecast a 150 billion yen operating loss.
The operating loss is Toyota’s first since the end of World War II.
Oh.
Wait.
Keynes 101 0
Atrios (emphasis added):
Allocating money to build SUPERTRAINS would be smart spending, IMHO, though potentially (depending) not a super-effective stimulus.
So ideally you have projects which are both smart spending and good stimulus, but spending is the stimulus.
Food for Naught 0
More possible toxic “assets,” resulting from the “free hand of the market’s” allegiance to greed over moral conduct (emphasis added):
The kits were shipped to Arkansas and Kentucky to help feed some of the 1.3 million people left without power for days at the height of last week’s ice storm. No illnesses have been reported, but several people consumed the suspect plastic packets of peanut butter.
Note that there is no evidence that the products in question are dangerous.
It could be that dangerous food is being removed from circulation (a good thing) or that good food is being wasted (a very bad thing).
Once again, we see moral bankruptcy of Republican Economic Theory: the “free hand of the market” is amoral and does immoral things if left unwatched.