Archive for February, 2006
The country I come from is called the Midwest
I’ve lived in the Midwest for 22 years. Every now and again, I am reminded that this is truly “home”. Yesterday was the Capital Brewery’s annual Bockfest celebration. An afternoon celebrating the 2006 Blonde Dopplebock with music, food, and of course beer. The best part: it’s all outdoors. In february. (The Bockfest slogan is “Always the last Saturday in February”.)
I have a special place in my heart for Minnesota, but I must admit that Wisconsin has really grown on me over the past few years. (In fact, come this summer I’ll be a full-fledged Wisconsin resident!) There is something very reassuring about the fact that each year some 2500 people attend an outdoor beer celebraton in the middle of February. This is where I belong.
Filed under Uncategorized : Comments (0) : Feb 27th, 2006
Inverted Scheudenfreud
I feel that’s the best way to describe how I’m feeling about the Bush Administration’s new energy policies. I’m happy that they’ve finally admitted that energy is a serious issue that effects economic and national security, but I feel a bit cheated that the Republicans are presenting this issue as though they just came up with it. Democrats have been talking about foreign oil and renewable energy for decades, and now Bush raises the issue as though he just came down from Mount Sinai.
I guess the real question is whether Bush will really put some money where his mouth is or just pay lip service to the issue to boost the Republican image going into the midterm elections. I’ve already been a bit concerned about the emphasis on “clean coal” as a long term energy solution. I think clean coal has its place, but that is as a transition energy as we move away from hydrocarbons altogether. Nuclear opponents will have to get over their fears and embrace the magical carbon-free energy solution that was so promising in the 1960s. Chernobyl and Three Mile Island were bad and rather scary, but technology has improved enough that the risk of catastrophic meltdown is negligible. (Conversely, the risk of increased global warming due to continued coal burning is a near-certainty.)
My litmus test for this administration is CAFE standards. If the Republicans have the courage to stand up to ailing American car manufacturers and demand increased fuel efficiency, it will prove that they’re willing to jeopardize some political popularity for the sake of progress. Given their previous track record with CAFE, this would require a real change of heart.
Final thought: I hope that Jimmy Carter comes back to Washington and punches Bush in the nose. He had it all figured out in seventies and we ignored him.
Filed under Uncategorized : Comments (0) : Feb 23rd, 2006
Google Ads
So as you may or may not have noticed, I added some Google Ads to tadfad.com. I’m not really expecting to make any money, but I’m very curious to see how they work their ads. Each ad is supposed to be relevant to the content of the page it’s on–let’s see what the GoogleBot thinks tadfad is all about.
Feel free to click on some ads. I might even make a few cents! (I wonder if I’m allowed to say that. Hmmm. . . I hope GoogleBot doesn’t eat me.)
The real reason I added the ads is to give me some additional motivation to update the ol’ site. So check back often!
Filed under Uncategorized : Comments (0) : Feb 22nd, 2006
Frank Luntz
Q: What do you get when tad has the week from hell and nearly buckles under the stress of work/school/pancakes?
A: No tadfad posts for a few weeks!
Fortunately, I’ve had a chance to breath after the worst week of the semester. As such, I thought I’d show the ol’ website some love. Here goes:
I just got back from a lecture at the Union. The speaker was Frank Luntz, professional Republican pollster. Not surprisingly, he did not draw a very large crowd on campus. (There were all of three people in attendance willingly admitting that they too were Republicans.) While I was initially skeptical, Mr. Luntz really delivered and I walked out of the theatre better informed about the world of politics.
I really enjoy hearing from “the other side” of politics. Here in the peoples republic of Madison, there are limitless opportunities to hear from the Left. (I’ve even attended a few Socialist events. They’re pretty weird.) Every now and then, a brave Republican will venture into the enemies camp to give his or her pitch. Last year it was Robert Novak, and it was somewhat interesting. This year, Luntz presented a very compelling look at what the Republicans are doing right, what the Democrats are doing wrong, and how we can shift gears to win in 2006 & 2008.
His specialty is language and specific word choices. (He was part of the team that transformed the estate tax into the death tax.) He put up some slides that really got the point across: 30% of Americans think we spend too much on “welfare”, but 75% think we spend too little on “assistance for the poor”.
Huh? Seems a little contradictory until you stop to think who America really is. I frequently forget that I am in a slim minority up here in my Ivory Tower of academia. Joe Blow doesn’t sit around debating the nuances of economic policy with his buddies. He goes bowling after work, drinks a Miller Lite, and talks about NASCAR or football or something equally masculine.
The Republicans know this and have manipulated Joe Blow very effectively. John Kerry talked like a senator during his campaign and went right over Mr. Blow’s head. (And he looks like a horse and can’t smile and is from Taxachusetts. But those are all minor details.) Kerry blew what should have been an easy win. He had all the cards–the economy was flat, Iraq was going poorly, Bush had failed to deliver many of his first-term promises, and his approval rating was below 50%. And yet Kerry couldn’t communicate with Joe Blow and lost because of it.
The great part about Luntz is that he is a Republican who is comfortable calling out the Bush administration’s bullshit and freely offers his advice on how Democrats can win. Playing to the crowd, he spent a bit of time on Russ Feingold and his chances in 2008. (According to Luntz, they’re actually pretty good.) The punch-line is this: communication is key and people want to hear words that produce an emotional response.
Bush knows this. Let’s see if the Dems can figure it out in time.
(My money says no.)
Filed under Uncategorized : Comments (0) : Feb 22nd, 2006
Micro Cogen
I was thinking of writing about the NSA domestic spying scandal, but I feel like by this time you’ve heard plenty about it. I’ll just throw in this talking point: The right-wing echo chamber often points out that “if you’re not talking to terrorists, you don’t have anything to hide. . . ” This week, Al Gonzalez went before the Senate Judiciary Committee to testify. When our very own Sen. Feingold requested that he be sworn in and give his testimony under oath, the republicans on the committee threw a tantrum and refused the motion. (Just like they did when the Oil execs testified) It makes you wonder, if you’re going to tell the truth, why worry about testifying under oath?
But enough of that.
I learned about a pretty cool new device last week: the micro cogeneration unit. Here’s the skinny: Most (~65%) of the energy content in the coal or natural gas that goes into a powerplant goes out as waste heat. Find a way to utilize that waste heat and you significantly increase the power plant efficiency.
This is called co-generation. Here in Madison, MG&E recently built a natural gas cogen plant on the UW campus. Some of the waste heat from the gas turbines is used to generate steam used to heat the campus. The combined efficiency is close to 70% when everything is running full-tilt. Pretty good!
Now picture a micro-sized gas turbine in your basement, with the waste heat used to heat your home: Micro Cogen! Instead of burning natural gas in a furnace and buying electricity from the electric company, a micro cogen unit burns natural gas to generate electricty, heat your home, and sells any surplus electricity back to the utility. Companies selling these devices claim efficienies of 80% or more.
Honda has a unit already on sale in Japan and plans on bringing it to the U.S. this fall. Sounds like a pretty cool idea.
Filed under Uncategorized : Comments (0) : Feb 7th, 2006
Food: Long Overdue Part Two
As mentioned in my previous post, I’m no longer practicing a vegetarian diet. Here’s the philosophical problem that I can’t quite figure out: As Americans, we live a very non-sustainable lifestyle. If everyone on earth had our diets, our cars, our homes, and our consummerism, we would last about a week before depleting all natural resources. For those of us who are enlightened enough to realize the problem, what are we to do? The quick answer is to adopt a sustainable lifestyle: eat vegetarian, sell the car, grow your own food, live in a shack in the woods, grow your hair long and stop showering. While this would certainly make a difference in your life, it won’t impact the other 300 million Americans too much.
Since we can’t all live in the woods, we make small sacrifices. We might buy a Prius instead of a Hummer. We might shop a local co-op instead of Cub. We might still grow our hair long and stop showering.
But therein lies the problem: these lifestyle modifications don’t make for a sustainable lifestyle; they merely decrease the degree of sustainability by a few percentage points. We feel like Good People because we are more sustainable than other Americans. . . but we still use far more resources than other nations, and far far more resources than is our share (considering the hypothetical situation of global equality).
What is the real solution? I’m looking around in the winter of 2006 and seeing the thermometer hit 50 degrees. In January. In Wisconsin. This is a big problem. My eating meat or not eating meat won’t stop this trend. Driving a Prius won’t stop this trend. Long, smelly hair won’t stop this trend either.
There are some major problems facing the world right now and we need serious action if we have any hope of making it through the next 50 years in relative peace.
Filed under Uncategorized : Comments (0) : Feb 3rd, 2006
