Nobrainer’s Think Tank

Another software update, another version of iTunes, and another reason to wonder just what the fuck is going on in Cuperttttttttttttttttttttttto, ahem, Cupertino?

The software update tried to install some new software that I had never heard of and that seemed completely unnecessary. That pissed me off.

The new iTunes install was not pleasing either. As I’ve complained before, it auto-places a shortcut on my desktop, which I never want. But this time it went so far as to remove the shortcut from my quicklaunch menu, which is where I do want it.

And just what about the new version of iTunes? None of the new navigation is particularly useful, but I did find a nice bug. When I use a dual-monitor setup (like I always do at work) and I have iTunes visible on the secondary monitor, and when iTunes is in Cover-flow mode, it actually causes my keyboard to lock onto a key I’m typing whenever it flips from one album cover to another, which iiiiiiiiiiiiih, ahem, which is highly annoying.

Regarding speculators:

Speculators who don’t take delivery (and we know today’s aren’t because oil inventory numbers are going down and not up) have no more control over oil prices than traders in weather futures have over wind speeds.

Recently, I have been intending to write something similar. Except I was going to compare oil speculators to those who bet on athletics.

And as a funny, yet somewhat scary anecdote, let me recall a conversation I had with an older fellow in Missouri. He said that to lower oil prices we should open the strategic reserves. The beauty of the plan, he argued, was that once prices got lower, we could just buy back all the oil we released at lower prices! I countered that if selling a whole bunch of oil will lower prices, then one should probably assume that buying a while bunch of oil would raise prices. He remained unswayed and emphasized that it was an easy proposition so long as young, smart people tried really hard to make it happen.

So there you have it, the solution to our energy price problems; young people working for the government figuring out how to hide the purchase of tens of millions of barrels of oil. Easy.

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.

• My reading of Innumeracy [my review here] represents a pause in my reading of Free to Choose by Milton and Rose Friedman. My mid-book review is that Free to Choose is so good, important, and valuable that it is hardly worth reading because it is so widely read and regarded by economists that I’ve already absorbed most of the book through them. However, the amazing thing about this book, which was originally published in 1980, is how well it reads in 2008.
• Two huge solar plants are being built in California and something smells fishy.
  

  The plants… in the middle of a sunny day will generate about 800 megawatts of power, roughly equal to the size of a large coal-burning power plant or a small nuclear plant. A megawatt is enough power to run a large Wal-Mart store.

  I’ve never seen power-consumption related on a per-Wal-Mart basis. It’s like the Times is trying to say something about Wal-Mart without saying something about Wal-Mart.

  Of course, skip a few paragraphs and we get to the first reality check:

  Though the California installations will generate 800 megawatts at times when the sun is shining brightly, they will operate for fewer hours of the year than a coal or nuclear plant would and so will produce a third or less as much total electricity.

  And then a WTF moment.

  The companies said they were forbidden by contract terms to talk about price, and a spokeswoman for Pacific Gas & Electric said her company was trying to obtain the best possible deal for ratepayers by not telling other suppliers of renewable energy what it was willing to pay.

  A huge utility building two big power plants and nobody is saying what the cost is? Yikes.

  We all love big deals where no one has any idea what the cost will be. Although when the deal is being made to conform to a government mandate, good deals are going to be off the table anyway. So good luck with that, California. If you want to (foolishly) subsidize the development of solar power for the rest of us, then who am I to complain?

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…)

In a reversal, Barack Obama…

With this reversal, he now favors releasing oil from the strategic reserve, a move I wholeheartedly disagree with. Nowadays whenever I hear Obama’s name I think of this guy.

That image may have been inspired by this that I read the other day:

In any case, Tom Maguire is sounding awfully cynical:

This may simply be another manifestation of an Obama campaign tactic - adopt every position held by McCain and then ask voters to choose their next President on the basis of youth, energy, and speaking skill. Could work!

Back to Barack’s new plan:

The Democratic presidential candidate said in a major energy speech that in the short-run the move could help drive down gasoline prices that now top $4 a gallon. Previously, Obama opposed tapping into the reserve, located in caverns in Texas and Louisiana.

Also, kudos the AP writer who is unaware that national gas prices are $3.88.