Whither Empty Car Dealerships?
Richard Florida reports the results of a poll of what should be done with the 2000+ car dealerships being shuttered as a result of the bankruptcy reorganizations of Chrysler and GM: Ask the local residents about what the community needs (222 votes) Urban gardens (200 votes) Create walkable, vibrant places and improve current communities (138 votes) Farmers' markets and local events (126 votes) Solar and ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on May 24, 2009 06:40
Pulling Out: Debating Middle East Disengagement (Neg. Rebuttal)
Since this is my last entry in the debate, I'd like to thank Bernard Finel for what I think has been an excellent, interesting, and informative debate. I've accomplished what I set out to do when I was moved to propose this debate: I've established that complete disengagement with the Middle East (the resolution of the debate) would ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on December 22, 2008 13:52
Pulling Out: Debating Middle East Disengagement (Aff. Cross)
Question 1 (Finel): You write: “I believe the evidence speaks clearly: the increased U. S. engagement in the region has overall been a stabilizing force.” What is the precise benefit to the United States of this increased stability? Are American interests in the region more or less secure today as a result? Or is this purely ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on December 18, 2008 11:21
Pulling Out: Debating Middle East Disengagement (Neg. Cross)
Question 1: What evidence do you have that reducing our “footprint” and “fingerprint” will result in a reduction of radicalism in the Middle East? BERNARD FINEL: Obviously, it is impossible to prove a hypothetical, so there is no direct evidence to support my contention that reducing our visibility will reduce radicalism. Indeed, I don't think it is likely ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on December 16, 2008 13:12
Obama’s Acceptance Speech: The More Things CHANGE, The More They Remain the Same
I wrote a quick post before bed last night giving my off-the-cuff reaction to Barack Obama's nomination acceptance speech, arguing that, despite all the talk of "change," it was basically a speech that Jimmy Carter, Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis, Bill Clinton, Al Gore, or John Kerry could have given. The NYT has a six-page transcript of the speech as delivered. Let's ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on August 29, 2008 08:14
Schaffer: ‘We Have Windows’
Last night's debate for the Colorado Senate seat being vacated by Wayne Allard had a rather amusing moment. Republican Bob Schaffer, a former oil company executive and solar energy advocate, was asked a not-unreasonable question: Reporter/Debate Panelist Lynn Bartels: “Bob, when you are on the campaign trail, you always pull out that tiny [piece of solar cell material]…you probably have ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on August 15, 2008 11:04
Creating Fuel Cells With Solar Power?
MIT chemists have developed a means to electrolyze water at room temperature with photovoltaic cells.A new catalyst makes it feasible to split water with solar power. MIT chemists say the catalyst, used in conjunction with cheap photovoltaic solar panels, could lead to inexpensive, simple systems that use water to store the energy from sunlight. In the process, the scientists may have cleared ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on August 1, 2008 02:04
More Good News For Solar
This morning, Glenn Reynolds linked to this bit of news from Popular Science regarding a discovery that could lead to greater efficiencies in solar cells: MIT engineers have recently helped up the feasibility of widespread solar power by developing a new “solar concentrator.” The concentrator, which is a flat glass panel spread across a large area, gathers light at the edges ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on July 16, 2008 09:59
Clean Air Causing Global Warming?
It seems that the leading man-made cause of global warming is environmentalism; specifically, efforts to improve air quality by reducing pollution, New Scientist reports. Since 1980, average air temperatures in Europe have risen 1 °C: much more than expected from greenhouse-gas warming alone. Christian Ruckstuhl of the Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science in Switzerland and colleagues took aerosol concentrations from ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on July 11, 2008 16:46
BLM Freezes New Solar Development for Two Years
The Bureau of Land Management has placed a two year moratorium on new solar power projects proposed for building on public lands. Faced with a surge in the number of proposed solar power plants, the federal government has placed a moratorium on new solar projects on public land until it studies their environmental impact, which is expected to take about two ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on June 29, 2008 08:44
McCain Proposes Prize for Battery Breakthrough
John McCain has proposed offering a $300 million dollar prize to the developer of "breakthrough battery technology."Senator John McCain on Monday proposed the creation of a $300 million prize for anyone who developed breakthrough car-battery technology and he recommended greater tax incentives for buyers of nonpolluting autos, saying that only a combination of increased oil production, conservation measures and ingenuity ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on June 23, 2008 23:17
Replacing Oil Ain’t Easy
The proprietor of the FiveCentNickel blog quantifies in a way I haven't seen previously just how enormous the challenge of ending our dependence on oil -- a favorite canard of politicians on both sides of the aisle -- really is. Drawing on a piece by CNET's Michael Kanellos, he lays out the numbers. Essentially, world energy consumption for 2006 ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on April 25, 2008 14:17
Building Democracy, One Warlord at a Time
The Washington Post has a heartbreaking article which might as well be titled "The More Things Change..." regarding our current "progress" in Fallujah:[Col. Faisal Ismail al-]Zobaie, 51, knows the nature of the men in black masks. He is a former insurgent. Now, as the police chief, he has turned against the insurgency, especially al-Qaeda in Iraq. The U.S. military showcases ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on March 26, 2008 00:25
Energy Independence Is Stupid (Updated)
One of the things that annoys me is the periodic nonsense about becoming energy independent. This idea that we can "wean ourselves off of oil" is just utter nonsense. The reason for this is that if there were economically viable alternatives to oil as a source of energy that source would be in use today and it would ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on February 22, 2008 10:21
Schwarzenegger, Giuliani and McCain Republicans
RealClearPolitics' John McIntyre reminds us that the 2004 convention gave President Bush a large bounce in the polls, while the Democratic convention did next to nothing for John Kerry. He's got an interesting theory on why that was: Who did Karl Rove and the GOP strategists chose to put front and center on prime-time television for the American people? ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on January 31, 2008 11:11
