Infinitus Incognita

For every 1 billion the federal government spends we (90 million who actually pay federal taxes) will get a bill for $11.11.  That’s pretty easy math.. so for instance the additional 57 billion of new ‘stimulus’ last week cost us about $633 each. How much did you earn last week?  If they were honest about what they were doing they would send out invoices to all taxpayers every month to cover the new ‘stimulus’.   What makes it worse is that we are borrowing about 40% of every dollar the feds spend which we will also have to pay interest on. The bill for that interest is still TBD as congress shows no intention of paying down our debt any time soon.

For the big stimulus monster last year.. just the principal of 862 billion means that each of us suckers tax payers is getting a bill for about $9577.

Now lets see a show of hands… how many people think federal spending stimulates anything?

You may have heard about our new mayor pushing for more bike riding in Charlotte.  Recently Foxx organized a ‘ride your bike to work’ day where he led a group riding into uptown from South Park on E. Morehead St. If you are familiar with this area at all.. you know it’s no place for bikers. It’s a busy road with tons of traffic..  tons of cross streets and businesses with people constantly pulling in and out.  I wouldn’t ride it even with my high performance electric bike.

You may not have heard that Foxx is merely playing his part of a larger organized effort by the United Nations to push the globalist green agenda on a more local level.  It seems that Charlotte has been a member of the ICLEI (International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives) almost since it’s founding in 1990.  Our very own former mayor Pat McCrory has even served on their board as the Environmental Commission Chair as part of the US Conference of Mayors.  I’ve not been able to find specific actions during his service yet but I’m still looking.

It seems that other mayors around the country are starting to take flack for their efforts to push for more biking and the citizenry have started pushing back.  These green initiatives aren’t just the misguided efforts of a few soft-headed do-gooders though.. they are part of a ‘very specific strategy that is being dictated by the UN’.  So what are they pushing?  The list is long and cryptic.. but this is what the ICLEI is officially supporting:

• Agenda 21
• The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change
• The UN Convention on Biological Diversity
• The UN Convention to Combat Desertification
• the Habitat Agenda
• the Millennium Development Goals
• the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation

So.. maybe it’s time to ask our mayor Anthony Foxx just exactly what his involvement is with the ICLEI.. what agenda he’s pushing..  and how any of this is good for Charlotte.

I’ve heard some… odd comments on the new Chevy Volt and just wanted to point something out.  The above line ’40 miles to the charge’ is being said with a negative connotation… even suggesting that the battery should be the backup to the gas engine.  The average commute is 20 miles.. and this was the target for the battery capacity… so lets do a little back of the envelope math.

Around here.. power costs about 9 cents per KWh and in round numbers this car will let you use about 9 KWH from the battery before it will fire up the gas engine to recharge internally. Assuming you can make a 40 mile commute and plugin when returning home.. drawing that power from the utility.. that would be a daily cost of about 82 cents.  The average passenger car on the road today gets 23 mpg  or about 1.7 gal of gas for that same commute which, at current prices (2.60/gal), would be about $4.52 per day.  There are other factors of course.. both positive and negative.. like ‘spirited’ driving and regenerative braking but those numbers put a ballpark on the fuel costs.  So over a month of commutes 5 days a week the costs are about $16.40 for the Volt vs.  $90.40 for the non hybrid. Over a year that puts fuel costs at about $197 vs. $1085 just for that first 40 miles per day of travel.

That’s a pretty good savings.. even with gas prices being as low as they are currently.  Now I’m not going to pretend you aren’t paying a premium for any hybrid.. but you would use a ton less petroleum and that’s a good thing.

So our illustrious Charlotte city council last night voted to take 25 million of federal money to start a new uptown street car boondoggle.. er I mean transit system.  To avoid confusion with the multitude of pet rail projects around here they decided to end service on the uptown trolley that has been in operation for the last two years.. and which we spent a whopping 40-60 million to create and operate.  The real numbers there are a little hard to come by but we know it was at least 40.. and 60 is more likely.  This “free” federal money for the new street car will be paired with at least 12 million of local money that is going to come not from the 1/2 cent transit sales tax.. but from the general fund.. aka property tax which they promised never to do by the way.

A little more history… back in 2007 there was a voter referendum to repeal the 1/2 cent sales tax in order to de-fund the light rail and put an end to all this train madness.  One of the big reasons the repeal failed was because the powers-that-be made a promise to the black leadership that they would give them a transit project of their own.. aka the street car in exchange for supporting the funding for light rail… which will not run in the more ‘diverse’ parts of town.  A few months after that vote.. the city leadership pushed the street car project to the back burner with a best case delay of about 10 years.  Last night at the meeting this was referenced as being one of those ‘empty promises’ that the black leadership was none too happy about.

Fast forward to today… the city is broke.. the county is broke.. the state is broke.. and the country is broke by many measures.  There have been no ridership studies… there is no money to operate the street car and CATS doesn’t want it.. other local rail projects have been running about 40% over budget to build and serious money losers to operate.. and yet none of this matters to the vote-buying city council. Promises were made.. and broken.. and now their seats might actually be on the line… so of course they cave and vote to spend more money we don’t have on a project we don’t need.  

This is a toy.. plain and simple not a serious transit project. Additional buses could do this job for about 1/10 the cost and would fit easily into the existing infrastructure/maintenance programs.  Additionally, bus routes can be adjusted as needed.. tracks running down the middle of the street can’t.  Buses can route around traffic accidents and street work.. trains can not.  The tracks are deadly to people on bikes or motorcycles.. ride down in one of those gaps and over the bars you will go. In this shot of Elizabeth Ave you can see what they have in mind.. the street car will totally block traffic where the tracks are installed and what about that on street parking?

Of course.. the economic development argument is a popular one in favor of projects like this.. but lets look at that.  The first 1.5 miles of this track, which we are paying at least 37 million for, will be in center city where almost the entire route is already developed.  You have the hospital.. CPCC, a few government buildings and a smattering of small businesses.  So.. not much development potential here.  When fully built the 500 million dollar line is going to run out to Eastland Mall.  This is the place the city very nearly paid 20 million for last year.. that was just sold to a private interest for 2 million with plans to turn it into some sort of big indoor flea market.  That certainly sounds worthy of a half billion of our tax money right? I’m quite sure the city will be spending more money to improve Eastland mall and all along the new route just like they did with south blvd… throwing more good money after bad.. and helpfully not counting that spending as part of the cost of the transit.

Be sure to contact the members of the city council and let them know just how much you appreciate them voting for this project against the wishes of a large majority of the voting public… sorta like the uptown arena.

I’ve been using a mac laptop as my primary system for about 5 years now.  I’ve had this particular system for over two years and never had a problem until last week.  I use this system both at home and at work so it gets a good workout and is pretty important to what I do.  I had some sort of power issue last week that required some new hardware internally.  I dropped it off with them on thursday night and was able to retrieve it tonight.. a 3 business day turnaround.  For about $300 they fixed everything that was wrong… which in this case meant a new motherboard (which they call a logic board for some inexplicable reason) and even a new battery.  That’s a pretty good deal considering.  I was a little worried about the hard drive coming back in tact (they warned me it might not) but they didn’t replace it… so I’m right back up and running.   Having dealt with the support for other big name PC computer companies over the last several years I must say this was the best experience I’ve had so far.

It was 62 days ago that I ask the city of Charlotte to take back their RFID tagged recycling bin.  I’m not going to play their game… which if you didn’t know involves tracking your participation in their money losing recycling program… and eventually fines.. and re-education about how to be eco friendly.  No thanks little brother.

Back when I first posted about this on May 6th (and scooped Taras army of research interns) I also filled out the form on the city web site to take the bin back.  I was given a ticket number… but I’ve not heard anything since. At some point in July I called and was told my request was still open but they hadn’t started picking them up yet.  So the program to use these new bins just started this week… and I’ve heard stories about the city ignoring a lot of requests for take backs.  So I called them again today… and discovered that my ticket had magically been deleted from their system… how interesting!  Darn those computer glitches.   So now they tell me it will be picked up sometime in the next two weeks and I’m supposed to leave it out in front of my house.

Tomorrow will be day 63 of the bin watch… at day 90 I might just take it down to city hall and drop it off myself.

Update:  Finally.. they picked up the bin a few days after my latest request.

Since this is the season around here for frequent thunderstorms.. I thought it might be interesting to look at what a typical storm cloud might ‘weigh’.  These things are floating above our heads.. and it’s just not something most people ever think about.  They are all unique of course.. so here are some baselines.

A storm cloud that is 1 sq/mi and 33k feet tall (medium height for what we get this time of year) with an average density would hold about 563 million pounds of water.  That’s equivalent to 644 fully loaded 747 jets or almost 3 Nimitz class aircraft carriers.

One inch of rain that falls on a 1 sq/mi area is about 17.4 million gallons of water which weighs about 145 million pounds.

A related stat.. if you made a tube around the Eiffel Tower in Paris.. the air inside the tube would weigh more than the tower.

• Currently Reading: The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable

With all the swirl and finger pointing around the oil leak.. I thought it was a good time to revise a posting from a few years ago.

1. People are stupid
2. There are no authorities
3. No one knows what’s going on
4. No one is really in charge

There are exceptions of course… but I find that if you live your life with these ideas in mind you will, more often than not, make better decisions and be less confused by what’s happening around you.

If you don’t quite grasp what I mean… think of the following questions:

• Are eggs good for you?
• What will fix the economy?
• How much water should you drink?
• How does magnetism work?
• Is cholesterol related to heart disease?

You may think you know the answers to these questions… but if you do a little research you will find there is still much debate from the ‘experts’ on all of them and that your perception of ‘fact’ is probably wrong. Certainty is a big word.. and if you are going to live your life as if you know the answers to these basic sorts of questions you might do well to check your assumptions… and your sources of information.

Here is my humble contribution for a possible way to cap/contain the oil leak. Kevlar 149 is very tough stuff.  The info I could find says it’s good to about 27 million psi tensile modulus which I would hope would be enough to contain the oil.  My idea is to have a short custom riser pipe fabricated with pads to anchor hold-down chains and a short steel cone on the bottom to align the pipe over the existing riser. A tight fit isn’t required.. because over the whole connection is a Kevlar sleeve that can be cinched under the existing pipe flange that is just under the now cutoff riser.  I would also wrap the flange in a tire to protect the sleeve from the sharp edge and help seal the connection.

It strikes me that this oil spill makes a pretty good metaphor for many things wrong right now.  Lets see.. we have the treasury gushing new paper money… congress gushing deficit spending… Fannie May and Freddie Mac continuing to gush bad mortgages..  the border gushing with illegal aliens and wanted terrorists.. Europe is gushing bad sovereign debt and socialist anger.. and of course the literal gusher of the oil which the regime administration has done very little to mitigate.

Obama claims to have been in charge of the oil disaster from day one.. but based on the results I don’t think I’d be saying that too loudly.  What is certain is that the democrat party has been in charge of congress since 2006.. and Obama since 2009 and what do we have to show for all their ‘progressive’ thinking? While things may (or may not) be improving in the short run.. it’s pretty clear that long term we are in a downward spiral.  So far that decline has been a gradual downward slope.. but now the pace of that decline is accelerating and may very well lead to a rapid collapse of the dollar.. and with it much of what we have come to expect as normal life. For more facts and figures check out this nice summary of our pending doom.