Adaptive Curmudgeon

I have long considered it a done deal that Athens would plunge into riots this summer. However, I expected the winter chill to keep things from boiling over for a while. Either I’m too much of a northerner and overestimate a Greek winter or (and this is more likely) I underestimated folks’ ability to confuse “bitching about things we dislike” and “changing things we dislike”.

Thus Athens is said to be in riots recently because apparently “austerity” can be counteracted by rioting. Really? And how is this supposed to help?

In honor of Greek “excitement” I’m posting a set of articles I wrote around Christmas and had planned to post around May. Is that not adaptive? (At least more so that burning cars to make money appear?)

The first post (which is not specific to Greece but rather rioting) arrives tomorrow.

“There are precocious children in pre-school who have never lived in an America in which the Senate has passed a budget.”

My unsolicited, uninformed, and unpopular thoughts on foreign events in 2012 (for everywhere but the financial/socialist rabbit hole that is Europe):

21. Vladimir Putin, because he is Darth Vader, will retain power.
22. Kim Jung-un, because he is the third son in a line of power whores, will retain power.
23. Large numbers of Americans and Europeans will incrementally decide that China, which appears to own everything, isn’t quite as stable as it seems. As soon as they realise this they’ll have a collective involuntary bowel movement. The rest of us already knew we were screwed so it’ll be just another day.
24. Guantanamo will remain open. Nobody will care unless a Republican wins the White House.
25. American troops (or some form of euphemism that means “mercenary”) will still be fighting in Afghanistan through most of 2012. Nobody will care unless a Republican wins the White House.

Foreign Events (In The Progressive Utopian Bliss That Is The EU):

26. Several European states will get new Prime Ministers. If three or more progressives win, the phase “European Spring” will be on trumpeted in the New York Times. If three or more conservatives win, the phrase “Meltdown” will be used. Meanwhile the nations in the real “Arab Spring” will be busily killing dissidents and non-believers.
27. Europe’s slow burn was demographically written in stone years ago and it’s still playing out exactly as expected. Things will get ugly because apparently folks would rather let it play out in full technicolor than do anything at all to adapt. If you’re watching from a distance, make popcorn. If you’re living there…uh…good luck.
28. Annoying people which have spent most of my life telling me how awesome Europe is and why America should be more like it will suddenly find some other target of adulation. Anywhere with socialised medicine will be a good candidate but it’ll be increasingly hard to find such nations that don’t have current riots in their capital cities.
29. The European common currency, which chains drowning and strong swimmers together, will persist even as everyone has a theory about how to deep six it. I’m not sure what will happen after 2012 but watching Brussels work though the mess they’ve created will be like seeing a sausage made back into a dead cow.
30. Everyone who’s ever had to kick a lazy relative off the couch will sympathise with Germany. Everyone who’s ever camped on a friend’s couch will sympathise with Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, and Spain.
31. The oil based socialist utopia of Venezuela will continue it’s slide into oblivion.
32. Haiti, which was a shithole before its earthquake, will continue to be a shithole.
33. Japan, which had an efficient and orderly society before its earthquake, will continue recovering at an impressive rate. I will put a Japanese bumper sticker on my Honda and set my Chevy on fire.
34. Somalia, which didn’t have an earthquake, will keep developing it’s pirate based economy.

I could be wrong… wouldn’t that be great!

Here’s the link to Cassandra Report I.
Here’s the link to Cassandra Report II.

Taki’s Magazine has the following fourteen words that sum up everything I’ve tried to say with thousands:

“The cause of civilizational decline is dirt-simple: lack of contact with objective reality.”

The text is spot on; if  bit too “fight club” for me.  I think you can get by with hard work and other challenges that aren’t the same as a punch to the face but accomplish the same thing.  Regardless, the concept is sound.

Hat tip to The Fourth Checkraise.

…but it was only me.

I was cold so I turned up the furnace.  Something that never happens…  Never ever ever.

The firmament of the universe tilted slightly at the news of this unprecedented event.

Don’t be alarmed.  It was only temporary.

The thermostat is now set back to 55 degrees where it belongs.

UPDATE:

Some folks seem to think 55 degrees is a bit low.  Harrumph!

I can (and have) dispensed with the furnace altogether in the past.  It started out because I was cheap and broke.  It continued when it became a personal challenge and a thumb in the eye of all societal pressure to the contrary. (It was also the series of posts that grew my blog’s hit-counter from absolutely embarrassing to merely pathetic and started me on the tragic path of multi-part posts.)

Links are below:

• The Furnace Chronicles Part I: The Call
• The Furnace Chronicles Part II: Preparedness Is Unrewarded
• The Furnace Chronicles Part III: I Decide To Experiment
• The Furnace Chronicles Part IV: Economics Thoreau Style
• The Furnace Chronicles Part V: To Have My Cake And Flush It Too
• The Furnace Chronicles Part VI: Ant Kicks Grasshopper’s Ass
• The Furnace Chronicles Part VII: Eating Your Vegetables Is Good For You

Both parties have completely given up on the Federalist view that America is made up of States.  One party centralizes power almost by accident.  They do it like a dog scratches fleas (see: absolutely everything).  The other party talks about “states rights” so long as they don’t have to face states actually making decisions (see: Terri Schiavo).

I dislike this development.  A Federation of 50 states has an inherent range of options.  It allows people to move from places they hate (see: gun buffs in California) to places they favor (see: gun buffs in Texas).  It allows each individual to seek their own habitat (see: hippies in California) and leave places where they’re unhappy (see: hippies in Texas).  It’s bad to lock people in a place from which there is no escape (see: most nations in most of history).

In honor of the states and the remaining differences between them I make the following predictions:

13. California will have electrical brown outs. Lacking either an Enron or a Bush to blame, they will claim it was caused by weather and condors. Governor Jerry Brown will promise more windmills; which will be dependent on weather and kill condors…this will cause brownouts.
14. Texas will execute extra criminals while experiencing a booming economy. They’ll do this just to piss off folks in fading former powerhouses like New York and California.
15. Wisconsin will experience a thriving economy and balanced budget.  This will infuriate unions which are trying to get Scott Walker recalled.  Walker, who campaigned on fiscal issues and is doing exactly what he said he would, will squeak out a victory against the recall.  After a recall battle which breaks all former records, is entirely negative, and financed by out of state interests, citizens will ponder suicide en masse.
    
16. Obama will campaign in Wisconsin only if it’s clear that Walker will lose; at which point he will claim that only he, the great Obama himself, can throw Scott Walker into the pits of Modor.  If it’s clear that Walker is about to win the recall, Obama will avoid the entire time zone.
17. Michigan, which didn’t engage in a Walker like examination of budgets, will quietly sell Detroit for medical experiments.  This will keep their state government running for six hours.
18. Iowa, which nobody cares about, will become very very popular for a few months.  Both parties, recognizing the seriousness of our $15,366,385,247,458.29 debt, will decide that it’s a really good idea to keep subsidizing corn.
19. North Dakota will continue it’s oil boom. Americans will grudgingly learn to locate North Dakota on a map.  Unemployed young men who escape the siren song of Occupy Whatever will flock there to find work.  As soon as they’ve made enough money to buy a decent truck they’ll flee for warmer climes. The entire population of North Dakota (all forty of them) will be delighted with their thriving economy while secretly wishing the newcomers would leave.  Obama’s campaign, recognizing employed people busily making fossil fuels have no time to screw around listening to speeches, will avoid that entire portion of the continent. Inexplicably, his Republican opponent will avoid the state too. The common ground between the parties is that neither of them care about North Dakota and their measly three electoral college votes.  (Also that free market jobs are radioactive.)
20. Rhode Island will smugly point out that it has four electoral votes compared to North Dakota’s three.  North Dakota residents will point out that they have lawns larger than Rhode Island.

Update:  Here’s the link to Cassandra Report I.

Suppose you must have a high mileage vehicle.  Maybe you’re cheap (efficiency is a virtue) or maybe you’re dedicated to reducing your carbon footprint or some other green kool-aid.  I don’t care.  All I want to do is save you from the hollow death of a boring vehicle.

High MPG does not mean gutless and uninspired.

You might think you want the ultimate high mileage vehicle…the Chevy Volt.  Forgetting that the Volt is powered by coal fired electricity it suffers from something else.  A fatal lack of cool.  Here is an identical priced alternative to the Volt with high MPG and…unlike the Volt…balls!

Photo A:

The $40,000 Volt. Photo taken in a showroom because none have been actually driven. If you drive this vehicle, even nerds will beat you up.

Photo B:

The $40,000 Morgan. If you drive this vehicle you'll have a permanent grin. It can rock your socks like a rocket sled on steroids. Jay Leno (who's driving it) is NOT in a studio because this is a machine meant to be driven...not a spreadsheet entry. (Image linked.)

The Morgan cost about the same as the Volt.  It gets 50 MPG.  It goes 0 to 60 in 4.5 seconds.  It sounds like a raging bull.  Women will want you and men will want to be you.  If you ever meet a Volt you’ll blow it’s doors off and be halfway around the world before the Volt has left the parking lot.

I’ve been reading about them for a while.  Here’s what a review had to say:

“…[it] gets its steam up with a noticeably Harley-like bellow from its pair of straight-pipe exhausts.”

and

“…feel vividly the robust crankshaft doing its business, the Harley-style driveline unit directly beneath our buns making sure that the power and torque reach the rear Vredestein tire without shredding it like confetti.”

Oh God yes!  Has anybody said something that sexual about a Volt?  But wait there’s more.

“There’s a fantastic noise from the V-twin that happens upwards of 3,500 rpm. Below that threshold, the sound and rumble come mostly from beneath in the exhaust pipes and driveline. But north of there, the two fat, fuel-injected cylinders out front start to sing an octave or so higher. Between the fresh wind raking past our head and that visceral racket happening from both up front and out back, the soup of sensations is really intoxicating, yet it’s also enough for us to realize that a good pair of goggles would be a perfect piece of kit. We know we need to back off sooner than we’d like, if only to keep our retinas from separating, but that practical decision to do so is delayed for as long as possible. There will be no 125-mph top speed runs today, however.”

And then it cuts to a video just so you can hear the delicious exhaust note as it’s fired up and nonchalantly peels out.  It looks fast just sitting there, sounds awesome at idle, and that’s not even considering what other dimensions of joy you’d feel with the hammer down!   It makes an electric clone of a Ford Fusion seem as exciting as a lobotomy by comparison.

“The thing, for all of its admitted quirks, is a pavement-grappling road rocket.”

Remember…50 MPG and same price…but you’ve got a goddamn rocket!

“…five-speed manual transmission pulled from the Mazda MX-5 Miata.”

If you can’t shift, you’re too pathetic to own this!

How about handling:

“…there is no anti-lock supervision, electronic brakeforce distribution, nor any other assistance on offer.”

So it’s not as good as the computer assisted control everything with a chip Detroit product?

“…stops on a dime.”

Yes!

Even better is that it’s being produced for profit.  They pre-sold 500 of them (July 2011) and will be marketing in the US in 2012.  The Volt needs a tax subsidy to drag a few out the door and this thing is causing the Morgan company to scramble to gear up to make more to keep up with demand.

Remember this is about the same price as the Volt and gets 50 MPG.  High MPG does not mean boring.  Listen to me folks.  Don’t drive shit just because gas is expensive!

Regardless of the game’s outcome, the question that weighs on my mind is the following:

“Will my tax dollars subsidize another stupendously expensive Chevy Volt ad? And if so…what. the. hell?!?!”

I’m not watching the Super Bowl but surely I’ll soon know the answer.  In the meantime I’m willing to make a few guesses:

1. Like global warming hysteria and disco, some stupid things take time to fade.  The economic madness of 2008 will not go easily into it’s dark night.  Thus I give Government Motors solid 3 in 5 odds that they’ll air a second consecutive ad for “the car which nobody is buying” (a.k.a. the Volt).
2. Like disco and the Monkees, stupid things don’t last forever.  Thus I predict the Volt will suffer the fate of another company that massively overestimated it’s market niche.  I present the Pets.com sockpuppet.  Yes, folks I’m referring to a time of historic madness; the 1990’s.  People who had drank their own Kool aid thought pet food was a great fit for Internet marketing.  This is called…a bubble.  Or as I like to think of it “the complete absence of objective reality”. To me, the 2000 Pets.com Super Bowl ad, was the high water mark of the “if we put e- in front of it we’ll make money” dot com bubble.  (I believe this was the same year they were pushing Internet enabled refrigerators.)  I remember thinking “their business is mailing dogfood and this is supposed to support Super Bowl airtime?”  Silly me, I had failed to get on the e-commerce bandwagon.  (Note: after airing a Super Bowl ad in February, Pets.com was bankrupt by November.)  Obviously a Federally subsidized program (the Volt) will resist market forces that pummeled Pets.com but it’s a done deal in the long run.  Everything from dog food delivery to the Soviet Empire eventually must adapt to the market.
   

   I'm an advertising gimmick that outlasted my parent company. I'm the most adaptive SOB you've ever met!

   P.S.  Allow me to ad one high note.  The Pets.com sockpuppet has “found work” long after it’s strange beginning.  All hail the adaptability of the cute puppet!

I’m here to warn about vehicular complacency in the face of expensive gas.  (Not that gas is expensive right now but it’ll go up again.  I’m placing bets on shortly after November 2012.)

We are Americans.  We should love driving.  Slinking around in gutless jellybeans is not in our DNA.  Expensive gas should not turn us into dour losers in boring wheeled appliances.  Leave that for the French.

I’ve seen the small car conundrum before:  In the late 1970’s something terrible happened; I’m not talking about disco, Carter, or polyester pants…I’m talking about Detroit’s self immolation.

Detroit had long churned out massive bloatmobiles.  Some were cool.  Some where shit.  Most were low quality.  All were based on cheap gas.

The price of gasoline soared.  In 1978 the price of gas was about $0.63.  In 1979 it jumped 36% to about $0.86.  In 1980 it jumped another 45% to about $1.25.  That’s 98% in two years. Ouch!

Detroit, land of big companies and bigger unions, rose to the challenge.  Ha ha…I’m just kidding.  It shit itself.  Even as a child I was disgusted.  Look at the title of my blog; I think “adaptability” is a big deal.  Things that can’t adapt are either extinct or should be.

Our government and Detroit were maladapted to expensive gas.  Together they bailed out Chrysler in 1979.  Americans were rewarded with the Dodge Aries / Chrysler K-Car.  Japan, a place nobody at the time cared about, displayed adaptability and ate Detriot’s lunch.  Well played gentlemen.

The thing that bothered me, even as a wee lad back then, was that Detroit had decided that a small car was a shitty car.  Wrong!  Being a kid, I knew better.  Chitty Chitty Bang Bang was a small car and that son of a bitch flew!

My folks (and I’ve always remembered this lesson in adaptation) dumped a standard American gas hog and bought a fuel efficient German car.  (Imports were practically unheard of in my redneck town).  It got great mileage.  More importantly it was fun to drive.  Even as a kid I decided it was fun even to ride in it.  It had farfegnugen!  Suck it Detroit!

Years later nearly every car on the road is better than a late 1970’s Detroit wheeled slab.  Most get wildly superior MPG, they’ve got better suspensions, cupholders, and AC is pretty much assumed.  But joy?  Still spotty.

When my household has needed a high MPG car we’ve bought from Japan.  Our current high MPG machine looks like a doorstop from the outside but it has a fun little five speed and I smile every time I drive it.  I’d hop in and drive cross country right now…no hesitation…it’s that fun.  It gets around 36 and that’s not screwing with the numbers or driving like an anemic octogenarian hypermiling weenie.

If I need higher MPG I’ll take my motorcycle (a Honda that’s made in Ohio).  I’ll smile like a madman, dress like a Klingon, rev the throaty engine, and blast out of town like a freaking maniac.  I’ll still crack 45 MPG at any non-stupid speed.  In any summer month I’ll hop on my motorcycle for a cross country trip at the slightest excuse.

Once my wife and I caravaned across the Wyoming high desert in dual high MPG vehicles.  My motorcycle was suitably black and menacing.  Her Miata had the top down and she looked hot.  (Yeah baby…I noticed!)  We both rocketed across Wyoming both faster and more efficient than most “economy cars” and it was fun.  (In the wind and high speeds the Miata beat my MPG…all hail fuel injection and sleek bodywork.)

High mileage does not mean low fun unless you’re an unimaginative asshole; which seems to be where a lot of car manufactures are coming from.  Learn it, know it, live it.  And it you can’t use a clutch…get that maladaption rectified right quick because part II will give an example of high MPG machines that rock.