It is a very strange and disturbing time, isn’t it?

Here in Massachusetts we have a Republican running for governor who’s campaign is largely funded by her spouse. They live in this amazingly wealthy neighborhood in a house on the ocean north of Boston. His company is a few miles from the house, making for a pleasant commute. Which is all fine; but for the detail that the state’s economic development program helped pay for the villa his company’s in. Seems that the Republican administrators of the program decided that this delightful neighborhood, one of the richest in the state and possibly the country, was a economically depressed. Well I guess that’s what business friendly Republicans do.

And then we have this guy Allen in Virginia, running for Senate. He stuffed deer’s heads into the the mailboxes of black people, or niggers as he called them for years. After months of stories like that coming out about this guy he’s running neck and neck against his opponent. What’s up with people in Virginia?

I have often joked, but now I am afraid, that what globalization would bring to us was South American governance, i.e. where when countries go bad people of the opposition just disappear never to be seen again. The right to demand that a court review the why somebody has been tossed in prison, it’s what 400, 600 years old? Our elected officials, here in the US, recently set that aside. The president or his minions now have the power to disappear us.

Consider this story in the Times today. Guy happens on the vice president in the street. Tells him that he thinks the Iraq policy is reprehensible. Can you guess what happens next? Yup, the secret service tossed him in jail.

Why exactly do we fear terrorist more than this? Why do we fear terrorist more than people who would, apparently without shame, write laws that retroactively say that their torturing people is legal. Why do we fear terrorists more than people who would make torture legal?

And then you have the announcement that Rice, who’s now secretary of state, was fully briefed on the Al Queda threat in July 2001, months before 9/11. She was told on a scale of 1-10 this threat was a 10, that something had to be done. She did nothing. Which is news. It’s deeply troubling. But it’s part of a pattern that was already clear. The administration just didn’t care. Didn’t care to learn how care about this kind of issue.

So while that’s horrible I’m more bewildered that it appears the 9/11 commission knew about that briefing and left it out of their report. Huh? I know that the commissions report was horribly partisan, but really this is over the top. How exactly can we trust anything in the report at this point. What else got left on the cutting room floor?

Of course Rice handled the news like any bad PR problem. First pretended that meeting didn’t happen, then that she couldn’t remember it, and then finally her staff admitted it did happen. Hope thru out, I presume, that it might blow over.

II guess it did blow over.
Now we have a new circus. A congressman who’s been chasing underage boys around the capital building for years. The good news, for him, is that the Scientologists are old friends of his, so he’s hiding in one of their ‘rehab centers.’ He’s got some excuses. Blame those Catholic priests. Though people say he doesn’t drink he’s also blamed on the drink. You’d think given that he’s got millions of bucks he could get a better crisis manager to handle his PR.

Of course the real story there is that if you’re a viciously unethical political party boss, then a rich closet gay pedophile makes a great lieutenant. No risk he’s not going to follow orders! So now we have the small amusement of watching the party captains skitter like roaches under the fridge when the lights come on.

What’s wrong with this country? It still it isn’t clear that the Republicans will be shown the door in the upcoming election. How can any citizen vote for any of these people? This really bewilders me. More so, it terrifies me.

So here’s a bit of hearsay.

First some background. Flex fuel cars are cars that can run on either petrol or so called E85. E85 is a fuel made with 85% ethanol and 15% regular petrol. The big picture reason to find E85 cars interesting is that they offer the potential to transition the installed base of autos from a oil based supply chain into a bio-fuel based one. The hope is that we can find a means to produce bio-fuels at reasonable price points. Setting aside my doubts about how hopeful that is I recently came upon this bit-of-info. I wonder if it’s are true.

Now the depressing rumor. The feds relaxed the fuel efficency requirements (the so called CAFE standards) for these cars as follows. In effect they decided that only the consumption of petrol would count in the ratings. So if the manufacture could make the case that 100% of his cars were using E85 rather then petrol he could calculate his miles/gallon based on the 15% of the fuel that was petrol. So rather than say 20miles/gallon he could claim about 120miles/gallon. Of course the presentage of of ethanol burnt wouldn’t be 100% but more like 20%; but that’s enough to provide a significant uptick in the CAFE numbers. For some car models, and for GM most of their models, this uptick is desperately needed. Otherwise they would have had to pay fines.

Just as an aside E85 isn’t as energy dense, about 30% less, as regular petrol, so it doesn’t get as good milage per gallon. One can only hope that’s reflected in the price at the pump.

We desperately need an exit strategy from the oil based transportation economy. Migrating that vast installed base is not going to be easy. E85 is one of the few scenarios out there that seems even slightly plausable. If the above is true it’s a shame. Since it suggests that GM’s only reason for advocating flex fuel cars was to avoid the tightening of the CAFE standards. Tightening the CAFE standards is, of course, about forcing the migration. So, if this is true it certainly taints the motives behind GM’s marketing campaign for it’s flex fuel vechiles.

Update:

Here’s an article about the so called Flex-Fuel Loophole.

The dual-fuel credit creates a stark difference. A flex-fuel 2005 Chrysler Sebring was rated at nearly 46 miles per gallon for the purposes of the federal mileage standards. Its actual miles per gallon running on conventional gasoline in a government test: Less than 28.