Sunday, November 11, 2012

Sunday Mailbag

Had dinner with Trace and Stan last night. Stan has been on a Roosevelt kick lately and sends me this clip. Lots of parallels with today's goings on and this immortal quote,"If Landon had given one more speech, Roosevelt would have carried Canada too." Dorothy Thompson

He also sent over this Move-on video which I can frankly take or leave. Several of their clips have been pretty unwatchable this election. Okay but a bit long and overdone.

Personally I find that watching the people gloat at MSNBC is almost as bad as listening to the Fox people dream up all their conspiracy theories for their recent defeat.

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An anonymous poster sends the Washington State Reefer fact sheet. And Jerry Brown wants Obama to back away from our bong.

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DeGoff sends this over,Volkswagen is supposedly getting an amazing car to market. Hudg sends this followup, 600 bucks very unlikely.

The Most Economic Car in the World will be on sale next year:

Better than Electric Car – 258 miles/gallon: IPO 2010 in Shanghai

This is a single-seat car. From conception to production: 3 years and the company is headquartered in Hamburg, Germany. It will be selling for 4000 Yuan, equivalent to US $600.

    Gas tank capacity = 1.7 gallons

    Speed = 62 – 74.6 Miles/hour

    Fuel efficiency = 258 miles/gallon

    Travel distance with a full tank = 404 miles

This is not a joke! This new car will sell for around $600.00, and they won’t be able to make them fast enough--good just to run around town. Here's a car that will get you back and forth to work on the cheap ... at 258 miles per gallon. It is a one-seat Volkswagen.

The aero design proved essential to getting the desired result. The body is 3.47 meters long and just 1.25 meters wide, and a little over a meter high. The prototype was made completely of carbon fiber and is not painted to save weight. The power plant is a one cylinder diesel, positioned ahead of the rear axle and combined with an automatic shift controlled by a knob in the interior. Safety was not compromised as the impact and roll-over protection is comparable to the GT racing cars.

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R´says I have to watch this Maher clip. And read Rebecca Solnit's essay on disasters.

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Kip and T both sent over this thoughtful Frank Rich piece from New York magazine that I had already read. Used to be one hell of a magazine once upon a time. Felker.

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Warren has been sermonizing on Petraeus of late, the latest bigwig to get caught with his dick in his hand. As I said yesterday, he needed a little more cloak and a little less dagger. Joins a long list, Slick, Weiner, Spicer, Edwards, that power stuff is sure intoxicating. Women just love it. Another good presbyterian has fallen, just the kind the devil tries to tempt. Unfortunate book title.

The General...."demanded bananas on his cereal every morning.......Wheaties I hope!!

I have a question that may appear to be a bit "fey" but when he would appear to testify before Congress he appeared to be wearing innumerable layers of medals........the proverbial "fruit salad".....was he ever in combat....if so Grenada does not really count.........is "camp"back in vogue....not mentioned and does my memory have it correct ....that I remember he was quite adamant on not admitting Gays into the military and bed rocked that on a professed strong Christian faith.......the CIA is and has been a well kept secret of being a leaky faucet......remember some years ago when there was a high ranking Agency alcoholic selling names of our agents to the Russians.....excuse the pun........for $500,000 a "pop"....

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Met an interesting cat at dinner last night who sent me this stuff today. The CIA's worldwide GINI Income distribution hotsheet by country. Here it is worst to best, well depending if you are a king or a serf that is. We may not be Sweden but at least we ain't Namibia, know what I mean?

This index measures the degree of inequality in the distribution of family income in a country. The index is calculated from the Lorenz curve, in which cumulative family income is plotted against the number of families arranged from the poorest to the richest. The index is the ratio of (a) the area between a country's Lorenz curve and the 45 degree helping line to (b) the entire triangular area under the 45 degree line. The more nearly equal a country's income distribution, the closer its Lorenz curve to the 45 degree line and the lower its Gini index, e.g., a Scandinavian country with an index of 25. The more unequal a country's income distribution, the farther its Lorenz curve from the 45 degree line and the higher its Gini index, e.g., a Sub-Saharan country with an index of 50. If income were distributed with perfect equality, the Lorenz curve would coincide with the 45 degree line and the index would be zero; if income were distributed with perfect inequality, the Lorenz curve would coincide with the horizontal axis and the right vertical axis and the index would be 100.