Guilty pleasure

Dan Neil takes a Mercedes CLK 63 out for a spin on the Autobahn.

The early morning sky is gray, the traffic is light. I have the top down and it’s rather windy in the cockpit. Actually, at a buck-55, it’s like being inside God’s own novelty whistle.

No question about it. Fast feels good. No matter what else you may think about high-performance automobiles — that they are reprehensible gas guzzlers, that they are compensations for guys who shower with their shorts on — no one can reasonably dispute speed’s pure, gleeful joy. If movement is action, fast feels like you’re accomplishing something. Fast is the kinesthetic equivalent of beautiful.

First Half of 2006 Sets Heat Record

The average temperatures of the first half of 2006 were the highest ever recorded for the continental United States, scientists announced today.

Temperatures for January through June were 3.4 degrees Fahrenheit above the 20th-century average.

Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska and Missouri experienced record warmth for the period, while no state experienced cooler-than-average temperatures, reported scientists from NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C.

LiveScience.com

Water usage

NewMexiKen found these “Water Usage Facts” (from my utility company) somewhat interesting:

• A normal shower uses approximately 25 gallons of water.
• Brushing your teeth uses approximately 10 gallons of water.
• Tub bath uses approximately 36 gallons of water.
• Shaving uses approximately 20 gallons of water.
• Dish washing uses approximately 30 gallons of water. (tap running)
• Automatic dishwasher uses approximately 16 gallons of water per cycle.
• Washing your hands uses approximately 2 gallons of water.
• Flushing the toilet uses 5-7 gallons per flush.
• A normal washing machine cycle uses 60 gallons of water.
• Outdoor watering uses about 10 gallons per minute.

More than one dynasty at work here

From an editorial, The MG Dynasty in today’s New York Times:

A Toyota assembled in Kentucky is now old news. Some of us can even live with the idea of a Jaguar sold by Ford. But it’s going to take a while to get used to the thought of an MG coupe built by a Chinese auto company in a factory halfway between Dallas and Oklahoma City.

Luckily, we will have a couple of years to think about it before the first vehicle — a newly designed MG TF Coupe — rolls out of the Nanjing Automobile Group’s new plant in Ardmore, Okla. When that day comes, it will be the first new version of the MG in the United States since 1980 — and from the first auto assembly plant built in this country by a Chinese carmaker.

The Times editorial, which continues, does not mention a most interesting aspect of the plan, however. The land on which the factory is to be built is former Indian land being re-acquired (and put into trust) by the Chickasaw Nation.

The interstate, a nearby railway, an abundance of cheap land and the tax advantages of partnering with a tribe make southern Oklahoma an attractive alternative to the Metroplex, McCaleb said.

This diversification is made possible by the Dawes Act of 1887, which eliminated Oklahoma’s reservations and carved up tribal land into individual allotments.

However, a tribe can buy land anywhere within its former reservation and ask the federal government to put it into trust for the tribe’s benefit.

That gives the tribe immense advantages for economic development.

NewsOK.com

Doesn’t it take longer than a day for oil to become gas?

Environmental Economics asks a question many of us have had:

Doesn’t it take longer than a day for oil to become gas?

Oil jumped to $78 per barrel yesterday. My wife paid $3.30 for gas this morning. I’m pretty sure it takes more than 48 hours for Middle East oil to become Columbus, OH gas. So what’s going on? In short, expectations matter. Prices are expected to go up in the future, so prices jump today. Is this greedy suppliers taking advantage? No just rationality at work.

And a commenter elaborates:

A gasoline retailer may have spent $2.50 for a gallon of gasoline sitting in his underground tank, but this is a (literal) sunk cost.

Why would he sell a gallon today for $3 if he expects the replacement cost to be $3.50 next week? Just holding the gallon will leave him $0.50 better off at the moment next week when his supplier finishes topping off his underground tank.

By the way, the price we hear in the news reports isn’t for Middle East oil. It’s for light, sweet crude delivered at Cushing, Oklahoma.

Clippings

Andrew Tobias points out a great new Google service with a little history (to which I can add, been there done that).

In the old days, it worked like this. (Really, it did.) Your company — or, if you were an author or a movie star, your publisher or Paramount — would pay a monthly retainer to a clipping service that subscribed to virtually all the newspapers and magazines in the land. Those services employed little old ladies (one assumes) to read it all and snip any mention of you or your company or its products. To those snipped out clippings would be affixed a little label with the name of the newspaper in which it had appeared and the date . . . and each week a stack of clippings would appear in your mail and the mail of all their other clients. Now, you just click here and get it all free and instantly as it happens. (If you were on TV, a company would call you and offer to sell you an audio recording it had made. Today, you just TiVo it.)

Bad Moon Rising

This lengthy post at Obsidian Wings seems to NewMexiKen to be a good statement of what’s happening in the current escalation in the Middle East. Here’s a key summary paragraph:

So the basic outlines of this, as I understand it are as follows: Hamas and Fatah were about to make some limited progress, involving Hamas backing down a bit from its refusal to recognize Israel, when the first soldier was abducted. Israel responded forcefully. Negotiations were about to secure an end to this crisis when two things happened: first, unnamed parties blocked the deal, and second, Hezbollah abducted two more soldiers. Now Israel has again responded forcefully, and the conflict has expanded into Lebanon.

And though many in the blogosphere dis him continually, NewMexiKen has reason to respect Tom Friedman, who had this to say in his column today:

The tiny militant wing of Hamas today is pulling all the strings of Palestinian politics, the Iranian-backed Hezbollah Shiite Islamic party is doing the same in Lebanon, even though it is a small minority in the cabinet, and so, too, are the Iranian-backed Shiite parties and militias in Iraq. They are not only showing who is boss inside each new democracy, but they are also competing with one another for regional influence.

As a result, the post-9/11 democracy experiment in the Arab-Muslim world is being hijacked.
…

The world needs to understand what is going on here: the little flowers of democracy that were planted in Lebanon, Iraq and the Palestinian territories are being crushed by the boots of Syrian-backed Islamist militias who are desperate to keep real democracy from taking hold in this region and Iranian-backed Islamist militias desperate to keep modernism from taking hold.

[I understand that people don't come to NewMexiKen for insight or understanding on issues of the day. But every once in a while I feel I can contribute by bringing what seem to me to be coherent ideas to your attention. In any case, it helps me figure it out.]

Billy the Kid

… was killed 125 years ago tonight.

Henry McCarty was born in New York City (or Brooklyn) in the fall of 1859. With his mother and brother he moved west — Indiana, Kansas, New Mexico. Mrs. McCarty married a man named William Antrim in Santa Fe. After she died in Silver City in 1874, the boy got into minor trouble, escaped jail to Arizona Territory, and used the name William Antrim. His size and age led to “Kid” or “Kid” Antrim.

Arrested for shooting and killing a blacksmith who was beating him in 1877, the Kid escaped back to New Mexico and assumed the name William H. Bonney. He enlisted in the range war in Lincoln County on the side of John Tunstall against Lawrence Murphy. After Tunstall was killed, the Kid rode with a group called the Regulators, a quasi-legal vigilante gang. The Regulators captured two of Tunstall’s killers and someone, most likely the Kid, killed both before they reached Lincoln and the jail. Later the Kid was among the group that killed Sheriff William Brady. The Kid was wounded in the fight at Blazer’s Mill with “Buckshot” Roberts. There were other gunfights between the warring parties. In July, the Kid was in the “five-day battle” in Lincoln where the leader of his group, Tunstall’s lawyer Alexander McSween, was killed. After that the war was considered over and the Kid lost any legitimacy. In August 1878, he was present when the clerk at the Mescalero Indian agency was killed.

Incoming New Mexico Territorial Governor Lew Wallace (the author of Ben Hur) issued a general pardon for the Lincoln County war, but it did not apply to Billy Bonney because he had been involved in the killing of Sheriff Brady. After another outburst of violence led to the killing of a lawyer named Chapman, Governor Wallace offered the Kid a full pardon if he’d testify against Chapman’s killers. Bonney agreed and was arrested in early 1879. Meanwhile Chapman’s killers escaped.

After waiting several months for the pardon, the Kid, who had some liberties, walked away from his guards, mounted a horse and escaped. He became a cattle thief, claiming it was owed him for back wages. He killed a saloon braggart whose gun misfired. Another man was killed in an attempt to capture Bonney.

The new Lincoln County sheriff, Pat Garrett, finally caught the Kid at Stinking Springs, 25 miles from Fort Sumner. After a gunfight the Kid was arrested. He was first charged in the murder of “Buckshot” Roberts, but eventually brought to trial and convicted for the murder of Sheriff Brady. Before Bonney could be hanged, he killed two deputies and escaped. Garrett located the Kid at Pete Maxwell’s ranch, waited in the dark bedroom, and shot him twice when he saw him outlined in the opened bedroom doorway. The Kid died without knowing who had killed him. He was 21 years old.

NewMexiKen photo, 2006. Souvenir hunters have chipped away.

The Virginian

Novelist Owen Wister was born in Philadelphia on July 14, 1860. His 1902 novel The Virginian, helped create the myth of the American cowboy. Reared and educated on the east coast, Wister first visited the West in 1885. Set in Medicine Bow, Wyoming, The Virginian’s tender romance between a refined Eastern schoolteacher and a rough-and-tumble cowhand, with its climactic pistol gunfight, introduced themes now standard to the American Western.

Library of Congress

It was now the Virginian’s turn to bet, or leave the game, and he did not speak at once.

Therefore Trampas spoke. “Your bet, you son-of-a–.”

The Virginian’s pistol came out, and his hand lay on the table, holding it unaimed. And with a voice as gentle as ever, the voice that sounded almost like a caress, but drawling a very little more than usual, so that there was almost a space between each word, he issued his orders to the man Trampas: “When you call me that, SMILE.”

The Virginian sold 300,000 copies in its first year. Not bad for a western by a Philadelphia lawyer.

George Washington Carver National Monument (Missouri)

… was established on this date in 1943.

George Washington Carver’s boyhood home consists of rolling hills, woodlands, and prairies. The 210 acre park has a 3/4 mile nature trail, museum, and an interactive exhibit area for students. The cultural setting includes the 1881 Historic Moses Carver house and the Carver cemetery.

George Washington Carver National Monument

Bastille Day

But above all, Bastille Day, or the Fourteenth of July, is the symbol of the end of the monarchy and the beginning of the Republic. The national holiday is a time when all citizens celebrate their membership to a republican nation. It is because this national holiday is rooted in the history of the birth of the Republic that it has such great significance.

… The people of Paris rose up and decided to march on the Bastille, a state prison that symbolized the absolutism and arbitrariness of the Ancien Regime.

The storming of the Bastille, on July 14, 1789, immediately became a symbol of historical dimensions; it was proof that power no longer resided in the King or in God, but in the people, in accordance with the theories developed by the Philosophes of the 18th century.

On July 16, the King recognized the tricolor cockade: the Revolution had succeeded.

For all citizens of France, the storming of the Bastille symbolizes, liberty, democracy and the struggle against all forms of oppression.

— Embassy of France

The eagle has landed

Former President Gerald R. Ford is 93 today. He was born as Leslie L. King, Jr., on this date in 1913. He took the name Gerald Rudolf Ford, Jr., when adopted by his stepfather.

Ford is the second oldest former president ever, after Ronald Reagan, who died at age 93 years, four months. John Adams and Herbert Hoover both lived to be 90.

NewMexiKen had several meetings with President Ford in the years after he left office in 1977. In fact it can be said that on one two-day occasion in 1979 I helped him clean his garage. The most astonishing incident, however, was in 1981.

The Gerald R. Ford Museum was about to be dedicated in Grand Rapids. As the representative of the National Archives nearest Ford’s retirement office in Rancho Mirage, California, I was called with an urgent request. It seemed flags had not been ordered for the replica Oval Office in the Museum. President Ford would lend them his. I was asked to go to his office, pick them up and ship them to Michigan.

The next morning I was ushered into the former President’s office. He was standing at his desk browsing through some papers. After the routine “Hello, Ken” and “Hello, Mr. President” exchange, I went about my business with the flags. He continued his business with the papers.

The U.S. flag was on a brass stand with two wooden staff pieces screwed together at the middle and a brass eagle, wings outstretched, at the top, about seven feet from the floor. I unscrewed the two pieces of the staff, a task made difficult by the weight of the flag and the eagle above.

As I began to lower the top half at an angle, the eagle took flight. It was just set on the top of the staff, not screwed on as it should have been.

Stop and picture this. The former President of the United States is a few feet away. His gorgeous White House presidential desk is even closer. And we have a brass eagle weighing several pounds in free fall. I’m holding the flag and can’t do anything but watch.

Poor President Ford I thought, he is about to be in the news for being clunked (or worse!) by a flagpole eagle in his own office — and this after years of being portrayed by Chevy Chase on Saturday Night Live as a clumsy, stumble-prone klutz. (In reality Gerald Ford was an All-American football player at Michigan in the 1930s and still looked exceptionally fit at 68.)

It wasn’t my fault the eagle hadn’t been attached but I was about to be a footnote to history.

Amazingly, the eagle missed Mr. Ford. Even more miraculously, it missed the historic desk and fell harmlessly to the carpet with a thud.

The former President had to have noticed. He never said a word. For that alone he has my enduring admiration.

Happy Birthday, Mr. President.

Woodrow Wilson Guthrie

… was born in Okemah, Oklahoma, on this date in 1912. We, of course, know him as Woody Guthrie.

This from David Hajdu in a review in The New Yorker earlier this year of a new biography of Guthrie:

…”This Land Is Your Land,” a song that most people likely think they know in full. The lyrics had been written in anger, as a response to Irving Berlin’s “God Bless America,” which Woody Guthrie deplored as treacle. In addition to the familiar stanzas (”As I went walking that ribbon of highway,” and so on), Guthrie had composed a couple of others, including this:

One bright sunny morning in the shadow of the steeple
By the Relief Office I saw my people—
As they stood hungry, I stood there wondering if
God Blessed America for me.

There’s an American Masters program on Guthrie currently in circulation on PBS.

I ain’t never got nowhere yet
But I got there by hard work

Woody Guthrie died in 1967.