Nobrainer’s Think Tank

The Dude: Walter, what is the point? Look, we all know who is at fault here, what the fuck are you talking about?
Walter Sobchak: Huh? No, what the fuck are you… I’m not… We’re talking about unchecked aggression here, dude.
Donny: What the fuck is he talking about?
The Dude: My rug.
Walter Sobchak: Forget it, Donny, you’re out of your element!
The Dude: Walter, the chinaman who peed on my rug, I can’t go give him a bill, so what the fuck are you talking about?
Walter Sobchak: What the fuck are you talking about? The chinaman is not the issue here, Dude. I’m talking about drawing a line in the sand, Dude. Across this line, you DO NOT… Also, Dude, chinaman is not the preferred nomenclature. Asian-American, please.
The Dude: Walter, this isn’t a guy who built the fucking railroads here. This is a guy…
Walter Sobchak: What the fuck are you talking about?
The Dude: Walter, he peed on my rug!
Donny: He peed on the Dude’s rug.
Walter Sobchak: Donny you’re out of your element! Dude, the Chinaman is not the issue here!

I know that I should never read things on the Daily Kos? Why? Not because I can’t deal with opinions that conflict with mine. No. Because the writers demonstrate that they have intelligence and that they absolutely refuse to use it. And I’m Nobrainer?

Case in point, this post: Doing what Detroit says is impossible.

The short run down is that some high school drop out mechanic is doubling gas mileage with off-the-shelf parts. This gets Kos all worked up.

Remember — Detroit tells us it’s impossible to increase gas mileage without taking a hit on horsepower. Yet here’s Goodwin — with an eight-grade education — able to design motors that blow the doors off the conventional (and obviously bullshit) wisdom.

The problem with Detroit isn’t the laws of physics, it’s the fact that a guy who never even went to high school can do things — with stock parts — that Detroit’s auto executives and their armies of engineers claim is impossible. Good ol’ American know-how and ingenuity is alive and well, just not where we need it.

These two quotes tell us a lot.

For one, it isn’t just Detroit who says some of these things are impossible. The Germans aren’t designing these things. Neither are the Japanese. I’m really fucking sick of Americans who blame all of the problems of the auto-industry solely on Detroit. I no longer have a particular love for the Big 3, but let’s realize that many of the trends in the industry are global and not attributable to Detroit.

And looky here, Kos says that Goodwin is designing motors, but then says that Detroit is selling the damn motors, which of course means that Detroit, in this case GM, is actually designing, building, and assembling the motors (actually engines). Goodwin isn’t designing motors or engines. He’s just assembling his own drive trains. That’s a huge fucking difference.

For another thing, Kos doesn’t even get into any of the technical details. I can think of only 2 reasons. Either he/she/it has no concept of the details and is wholly out of his/her/its element (which one can believe based on the point I made in the preceding paragraph), or he/she/it is intentionally omitting information to mislead. In other words, Kos is not someone you should be reading, at least with respect to energy and energy policy, and probably not ever.

So what are the technical details? First, the guy is basically swapping out the gasoline engines in Hummers with diesel engines. And those would be Detroit’s diesel engines (not to be confused with Detroit Diesel engine, Detroit Diesel being a specific company). That’s the major step. He’s just putting in diesel engines. That’s it. Although he goes on and makes some other modifications. He does add electric motors and makes hybrids. That’s great. But guess what? GM has been marketing and selling (very poorly) hybrids for years. Other modifications include adding hydrogen and/or natural gas to the fuel mixture. This last point is important, and is often one used by no-good liars and/or no-good idiots. They substitute some other fuel that isn’t diesel or gasoline and then go on and on about their “miles per gallon” without hardly mentioning all the other energy required to get to that final MPG calculation. These people are usually also the ones who think that everyone should use only ethanol or biodiesel without taking it account where all that biofuel would have to come from.

And keep in mind, too, that this guy is basically making a few workshop-quality vehicles. There is a huge difference between something that works for several thousand miles for a mechanic who can fix the vehicle at any time and something that will be reliable for at least a hundred-thousand miles. Maybe Goodwin’s designs are robust. Or maybe they’re not.

You know what they say: if it sounds to good to be true, idiots will demand it and politicians will promise to deliver it.

They just happen to be significantly less dangerous than not using them:

In a bizarre one-car wreck early Sunday, the driver was thrown from his own car as it spun out of control – then the car ricocheted off a building and struck the driver, killing him, St. Petersburg police said.

The driver was identified as Jonneth Correa, 20, of St. Petersburg.

At 1:12 a.m. Sunday, Correa was driving down 38th Avenue North at a high rate of speed when he decided to try to beat a changing stoplight, St. Petersburg Traffic Homicide Investigator Mike Jockers says in a written statement.

The Honda he was driving flew into the air, struck the center median, slid sideways and then hit an above-ground city water meter, Jockers said. It then struck a tree, causing it to spin violently counterclockwise. In the process, Correa, who was not wearing a seat belt, was thrown from the Honda, and the young man struck a building at 4957 38th Ave. N.

The Honda then struck the same building and then struck Correa, Jockers said.

A 21-year-old passenger in the Honda was wearing a seat belt and was treated at an area hospital for minor injuries.

How to Make a Scary Political Ad

Now that I have remembered that I actually get to vote, I get to start making my “I will not vote for this person because they should be shoveling shit on the side of the highway” list. I don’t know why I envision shit on the sides of highways, but it’s the first thing that came to mind and I’m going with it. And where else to keep that list than right here for your amusement.

First on the list is Janet Oleszek, who is running for a state (VA) Senate seat in the 37th District, which apparently includes Fairfax County, which further means that not only can I find her commercials to be horrible, but I can actually vote against her.

Why is she on the list? Because the commercial I just saw quotes her opponent as being against research using embryonic stem cells, then rephrases it leaving out the word “embryonic” and moving on tell us that stem cell research will cure everything from diabetes to acne to stinky feet to global warming. Of course I’m paraphrasing to mislead, but so does her commercial.

Sorry Janet, you suck. There’s a shovel outside my house waiting to be picked up.

And no I’m not kidding about the shovel.

I used to prefer to shot at Home Depot over Lowes. Maybe it was because of NASCAR, or because I liked all the orange in the stores, but now I am thoroughly sick of Home Depot.

The stores have been come completely uninviting. The employees aren’t helpful. Often, the shelves aren’t even well stocked.

But I just got screwed through their online store.

I wanted to buy my brother a very belated birthday present. At home Home Depot it was $19.99. At other online stores it was about $26. Obviously Home Depot looked like the better deal. Until I had to deal with shipping. The item is neither particularly big or heavy. The box will be less than 1 cubic foot and I’m sure it will weigh less than 3 lbs. You want to know how much they charged for ground delivery? $13.43.

THIRTEEN, FORTY-FUCKING-THREE!

The other stores wanted to charge about $7. So in the end, the price was about the same and I opted for name recognition. But even though I bought this product from HD, they can be sure I won’t be back any time soon.

Last night I wrote — and somehow deleted — a review and warning about Philips compact fluorescent light bulbs.

With the original post gone and not feeling like writing it again. I will summarize briefly.

Philips CFBs are shitty. They take forever to warm up and then they can even start buzzing. That is great if your house happens to be a high school gymnasium. Since it probably isn’t, stick with GE bulbs. They’re worth it.

Speaking of being worth it, suck up your pride and go to Wal-Mart to get your GE CFBs. You’ll probably be able to buy 2 or 3 times as many bulbs for the money.