the tao of salad

Always opposed and balanced, always complimentary, the eternal beet salad and french potato salad dressings share the plate.

Give Joe something for his 85th and our 4th

My friend Joe Bell turns 85 this July 4. Joe's a great guy, and has been close to our family forever. This is the first time I've seen Joe ask for a birthday gift, because he's got Midwestern values about these things and he's got all the stuff he's likely to need from now on. But he did ask for something.

He'd like his country back, please.

It's the least you can do for an old veteran.

what a week (local)

Tonight I almost ran over an entire pack of ironically metalled-out 20somethings who were tittering across the street after a Scorpions concert at the fairgrounds. The cops were having a joyous time arresting them all for misdemeanor irony. Aren't the Scorpions, like, 60 years old now?

Looking through the police blotter I see that:

• There was a drive by shooting around the corner from my house (East Bay St.)
  
  
• Someone found the remains of a bound and decapitated lamb, which appeared to have been sacrificed by some loons celebrating the Solstice (way to handle your GOTH PARTY, assholes!).
  
  
• Some local buffoons put an ad on Craigslist selling very illegal fireworks and all got arrested. Bonus points: the ringleader, teen henchman #1, and teen henchman #2 all have Myspaces so we can laugh at them.
  
  
• A local couple were convicted of slavery this week. That'll look awesome when you apply for a job at Wendy's after you get out. Please list your felonies on this form.
  
  
• There are two separate ongoing criminal cases at once right now of guys who licked people's feet.

On the plus side, my friend Craig made it into the Weekly for being a 581% insane hardcore bicyclist. He's clearly made from liquid metal.

helden

Today's strange heroes are a U.S. military lawyer and a gay Brahmin.

Green Auto Primer for the Confused

1. Hybrid cars are not intended to save fuel, and do so poorly. They are intended to reduce emissions. The reason they exist is that auto makers are required to reduce their overall emissions and to provide some zero emissions vehicle by law. In order to continue producing luxury trucks with inefficient pushrod V-8 engines, they must produce a token amount of the hybrids, on which they lose money. When you purchase one you are personally producing less pollution as you drive, but the overall problem is not solved, nor are these vehicles a solution of any kind to the problem of the car.
   
   
2. Biodiesel requires more petroleum to produce than ordinary petroleum-based fuels, according to recent studies. This is because industrial agriculture in the United States requires so much energy, from the nitrogen fixation to the machinery used, that the fuel oil produced from crops is basically inefficiently converted oil. Biodiesel is a great idea if you already have a source of free biomass around, and it is a great idea for a small number of vehicles that can live off the waste biomass others discard. The overall problem is not solved, nor are these vehicles a solution of any kind to the problem of the car.
   
   
3. Ethanol and ethanol-gasoline mixes do not reduce the U.S. dependence on foreign oil. Ethanol is made almost entirely from corn. The corn is indeed domestically grown in huge quantities and not imported. However, the corn yields depend absolutely on high-powered artificial fertilizers which require so much energy to produce that they are basically congealed electricity. Unless the plants that produce these fertilizers are somehow powered by some unknown renewable or domestic energy source, this country is still absolutely dependent on oil to make the fertilizer so that the corn can be grown and converted into ethanol. When there is a surplus of corn and a temporary shortage of petroleum, ethanol is a fine idea, because it reduces the consumption of gasoline in the short term. The overall problem is not solved, nor are ethanol-based fuels a solution of any kind to the problem of the car.
   
   
4. Great strides have been made in improving the passenger car. If the current technology was appropriately used to its maximum, pollution and fuel consumption from cars could be reduced tremendously. However, almost everything in this country is distributed by truck. It would be difficult to change this, because the country is very spread out. Commercial trucks predominantly use older diesel engines which are inefficient and dirty. Even if every new truck sold was required to be much, much more efficient and clean, the current trucks would be on the road for a long time. Trucks are rarely replaced; they are repaired. It's very expensive to replace them. Any large-scale change in the trucking industry would require a tremendous amount of government subsidy to compensate the small companies and individual contractors who own these trucks, because they can't afford to upgrade. A sharp increase in the cost of trucking would be felt throughout the entire company. There is currently no good solution to the problem of the truck.

Have a nice auto-doom!