Nobrainer’s Think Tank

Yesterday the news out of New York City was that Mayor Bloomberg wanted to put wind turbines on the tops of all the skyscrapers. Who here thought, “that’ll never work?” If you thought that, give yourself a cookie.

Now that Bloomberg’s statements have been spread around the country, he has had to fess up.

“There are aesthetic considerations,” Bloomberg said. “No. 2, I have absolutely no idea whether that makes any sense from a scientific, from a practical point of view.”

Actually, Mayor, you do have an idea, and no, they don’t make any sense.

Via the OrangeCoat Blog, I followed a link to ADynammic’s post about Tom’s Shoes and their “amazing” business model.

I think Tom’s is great because they are more than just a shoe company (they aren’t even a pretty shoe company). They are a company who set out to do good, and they’ve done that. Mr. Mycoskie says the shoes sell themselves because almost everyone who buys a pair and hears the story tells someone else the story and it goes on and on. He rarely pays for any traditional advertising because the story sells it’s self. Now people like Ralph Lauren and other big designers are signing on to design special additions because they love the story as well. This is capitalism at it’s best. So check out the embedded video and maybe you’ll want to get a pair as well.

In other words, he collects a premium from gullible, probably guilt-ridden, customers, gives them a shitty pair of shoes in return (that no one even pretends are worth wearing), convinces some of them to work for him as free interns, sends a pair of shoes abroad to some poor kids, and then pockets the tidy profits.

This is not capitalism at its best. A fine case of charlatanism, perhaps. Or maybe charity at its worst.

Not that “best” capitalism is easily defined. But were I to venture a definition, Tom’s would sell shoes that were worth buying and that competed in the marketplace based on their own merits as shoes. He would also put his production plants in these poor countries (he may do so, but the video doesn’t say) so that he could provide jobs instead of handouts. But this is obviously just me being silly.

And then I’m going to stick one on every fucking Prius I see with an Obama sticker.

Ok. Deep breath.

Exhale.

All right. Immediate reactions aside. This can’t be real. Mr. Wordly, Mr. Improve our Image Abroad can’t seriously be behind something this stupid. It has to be part of the vast right wing conspiracy. Has to be. Right?

Despite the lack of activity here, things have been moving quicker over at the Sporting Gnomes.

Otherwise I haven’t been up to a whole lot lately. I’ve managed to harvest 5 Roma tomatoes from my garden. The first 3 were delicious.

I’ve been thinking through some posts in my head. They’re about how I hate Jim Rome, Brett Favre, and the National Association of Realtors and their god-awful radio commercials. Oh, and John Edwards. Yes that would be the same John Edwards that I so lovingly refer to as ex-Senator Ass-Clown. There’s nothing worse than a used car salesman except a Realtor, or John Edwards.

For more on ex-Senator Ass-Clown, you should mosey on over to Harpers.org.

To show his own dedication [to fighting poverty], Edwards “created a tax-exempt nonprofit dedicated to fighting poverty”, reported the New York Times… [T]he Center may have done some good, but its primary purpose was to serve as a vehicle for Edwards’ political career…

About a week before Edwards acknowledged having an affair with Rielle Hunter, Edwards quietly shut down a “scholarship program he started at an Eastern North Carolina high school–a program he once promised would be a model for the nation under an Edwards presidency,” reports the Raleigh News & Observer

And you bet your ass that I believe he’s the father of Rielle Hunter’s baby and that he continues to lie about it.

In an effort to provide fair treatment to the candidates, I quote John McCain.

I’m going to lead our nation to energy independence.

No, you’re not, John. You are lying out your straight-talking ass. We’re not going to be energy independent any time soon. You and I both know that. The difference is that I’m not trying to sell my soul for political gain.

And, from the same article, how’s this for a stinky dump of ideas.

One goal is to put at least 1 million so-called plug-in hybrid vehicles that would get as much as 150 miles to a gallon of gasoline on the road by 2015. That effort would be spurred by a $7,000 tax credit for consumers who buy them. Automakers would get $4 billion in loans and tax credits to help them retool factories to build such cars and trucks, Obama said in Michigan, a battleground state that has been especially hard-hit by the slowdown in the U.S. auto industry.

He also proposes requiring that 10 percent of U.S. electricity come from renewable sources by the end of the next president’s first term and cutting U.S. demand for electricity 15 percent by the end of the next decade.

So Obama wants us to use the grid to power our cars, and he wants use to use less electricity overall — not the underlying fuel, even. But electricity overall. That doesn’t seem to add up.

As much fun as that sounds like, he’s audaciously hopeful and bold to attempt to require that 10% of our electricity come from renewable sources. Of course, I’m being audaciously sarcastic. As of 2006, we got 9.49% of our electricity from conventional hydroelectric and other renewables. Bold. BOLD I SAY!

I also love this proposal. As I mentioned yesterday, he reversed his position such that he is now in favor of releasing oil from the strategic reserve.

In what an adviser called a “refinement” of his stance on using the reserve, the Illinois senator proposed releasing light crude, which is easier to refine, and replacing it later with heavy crude oil in a swap intended to retain reserve levels.

Elgie Holstein (MoooOOOOO!), an energy adviser to Obama, said the swap wouldn’t reduce the size of the reserve “for any extended period of time,” and that it would still protect America’s ability to tap into the reserve in the event of a “real supply” disruption.

I may have added some commentary into that last quote.

Anyway, Obama’s official plan is basically “Lower prices now, higher prices later.” Whew boy!

In other energy related news… (more…)

The Chinese have apparently had capped electricity prices for some time. Well, when the cost of coal went up, the generators started losing money and some of the generators shut down, leading to some electricity shortages. So the Chinese gov’t imposed price controls at the mines. So the price of coal arriving at the ports went up. And now the Chinese gov’t is imposing price caps at the ports. Talk about chasing your tail!

The world’s fastest-expanding major economy faces such acute power shortages that electricity-sapping industries including aluminum smelters have had to halt production.

Energy supply shortages have become a “key factor” in holding back the nation’s economic and social development, the Chinese government said in a statement yesterday.

To conserve energy and cut the nation’s demand for oil, Premier Wen Jiabao ordered the nation to cut back on summer air conditioning and drive less, according to yesterday’s statement. The nation will also shut more oil-fired power generators, it said.

Of course, more price controls will invariably lead to greater shortages. I really don’t see the benefit of low prices if there is nothing there to be bought.

It’s worth pointing out that the Chinese are facing actual shortages, whereas we are having to cope with ample supply @ higher prices. We tried the price control and shortages thing a few decades ago. Fortunately we still seem to have enough sense to try to avoid repeating that. Anyway, let’s welcome the Chinese to the 1970s. I hope they like disco.