On the death of the electric car

Posted on by

Recently, I saw the documentary movie Who Killed the Electric Car?. I recommend it as a sobering look at how a successful and innovative technology was strangled by forces that feared it would hurt their profits.

When my mind wanders to recollections of the film, the scene that sticks with me the most (well second most; the most memorable scene is all those cars taken away for destruction over the protests of their owners and supporters) is one whose significance is largely glossed over by the filmmakers.

It is at the point where the film is describing how, instead of battery technology, the car and energy industries are pushing for the development of hydrogen fuel cells as a clean alternative to conventional engines.

There is a specific scene, with President Bush, that takes place at a Shell station outfitted with a tank for “refilling” a hydrogen cell. The narrator’s criticism focuses on the fact that hydrogen technology is still at least 20 years away from being a practical alternative (if it ever gets there at all), while the electric car is practical today.

But to me, the most telling point was the Shell station itself. With electric cars, owners “refuel” their vehicles in their own garages at night, with a battery charger. With hydrogen, you still need to go to a Shell station (or equivalent) to refuel.

No wonder oil companies are aghast at the idea of a successful electric car. How many Shell stations would wind up going out of business if people never needed to use them again, because they could get all the fuel they needed from a wall outlet?

If the oil companies get their way (and they seem to be doing so), that future will never happen. At least not as long as their is oil in the ground and money to be made from selling it.

North Korean missles target Bush hypocrisy

Posted on by

Whatever else you might want to say about the current Bush administration, one thing is clear: they are a bunch of hypocrites.

Yesterday, North Korea made good on its months-long threat to launch short and long range missiles. The lone long range missile crashed shortly after take-off, but at least they get an A for effort.

As to the Bush administration, their response is to express “outrage,” look for a U.N. resolution supporting economic sanctions, and push to resume the six-party talks. Nowhere was there a mention of any possible invasion.

The comparison to Iraq is illuminating. North Korea has demonstrated the intent and capability of producing weapons of mass destruction, with the potential of these weapons actually reaching U.S. shores. Iraq never showed the least indication of any intention to attack the U.S., the evidence that it even had WMD was muddy at best, and the end result, of course, was that no such weapons even existed. So guess which country we invade?

Now I am not in the least suggesting that we should seriously consider invading North Korea. I support the restraint currently being shown. What I am saying is that the irrationality and inconsistency of the Bush administration here points up the basic hypocrisy of the decision to invade Iraq. While Condoleezza Rice urged the invasion of Iraq lest the smoking gun we find too late turned out to be a “mushroom cloud,” the same logic does not seem to apply to the more real threat of North Korea.

The explanation for this hypocrisy is that the invasion of Iraq was never really about WMDs. I doubt we will ever know for certain exactly what the internal justification was. Getting control over Iraqi oil? Putting a U.S. friendly government in the middle of the Islamic Mideast? Finishing up the unfinished business of the first Iraq war? Whatever it was, it was not sufficient to justify an invasion. So the threat of WMDs was exaggerated. Even worse, the presumed existence of WMDs was claimed to be sufficient for a preemptive strike. Yet, the more real threat from North Korea does not clear the same bar.

The Bush administration has continued to rewrite history over the past 4 years, coming up with a new rationale for the war in Iraq each time the old one proved in error or no longer relevant (eradicate WMDs, depose Hussein, set up a democratic government, eliminate the insurgency). I guess it’s time to get ready for a similar list of rationales for why North Korea is not the same as Iraq, a list that will similarly evolve each time North Korea’s increasingly belligerent behavior makes the old rationale obsolete.

Global Warming: Why the heat?

Posted on by

Often, when I listen to or read conservative viewpoints on global warming, I confess to being a bit mystified. It’s one thing to be opposed to something because you believe the facts are on your side. But that presumes that, if you could be convinced that the facts told a different story, you would change your view.

I believe this is the case for most people who argue that we should be concerned about global warming. Presumably if, over the next few years, a series of respected scientific reports came out that all argued against global warming, and if the initially predicted effects failed to occur or were seen to start to go in the reverse direction, we would all cool off (no pun intended).

But I don’t get that sense from global warming opponents (if “opponents” is indeed the right word here). Instead, the level of rehtoric suggests that if you could present irrefutable evidence that global warming was truly a serious threat, opponents (who almost always are political conservatives) would be at best disappointed and at worst would irrationally cling to their false beliefs anyway.

Why is this? On the surface, there seems nothing political about the subject. Either global warming exists or it doesn’t. If it does exist, it will not single out liberals for its harmful effects. So why have such a vested interest in one side of the debate?

I believe that one reason (as described by George Lakoff in an article I strongly recommend reading) is that an acceptance of global warming would require that something be done about it. That something would inevitably include increased environmental restrictions and more government oversight of industry. It is this that conservatives are against. They prefer to believe that global warming is not a threat because it is consistent with their overall political agenda.

This is not entirely unlike the tobacco industry, decades ago, insisting that cigarettes are not harmful to your health, despite the mounting evidence. They clearly had a vested interest in what was accepted as “true” and facts be damned. It’s the same sort of position now taken by conservatives and global warming.

Even if it turns out that the global warming threat is less serious than Al Gore is suggesting (which I doubt), it would not change the fact that the conservative position is based primarily on a desire to defend a conservative philosophy, whether it fits with the truth or not.

The Supreme Court splits again

Posted on by

In the last few days, the Supreme Court handed down two major decisions. One involved a challenge to the redistricting of Congressional districts in Texas. The other involved Bush’s use of military tribunals for Guantanamo detainees.

Neither of the decisions should lead you to stand up and cheer. But, as I’ll get to in a moment, the real problem goes beyond the decisions themselves.

In the first decision, the court upheld (with one exception) the Texas redistricting. Recall that this redistricting was (1) done after the 2002 elections, the same elections for which Tom DeLay and others are now under indictment for having illegally used corporate funds to support Republican candidates. After illegally obtaining control of the legislature, they used their new power to perform a mid-decade redistricting with the openly stated purpose of gaining more Republican seats in the U.S. House. They succeeded, grabbing six new seats, a significant margin for maintaining their control of the House. The Supreme Court has now given its blessing to this theft.

The Court achieved this result by sidestepping the issue of the illegality of contributions. In essence, the Justices said (1) the Constitution does not prohibit mid-decade redisticting and (2) all redistricting is political and that this case did not appear to overstep the bounds of normal political activity. Except for the judgment call as to whether or not this case overstepped the bounds of what is acceptable, I have to agree with the Court’s reasoning here. Yes, the ruling opens the door to having more and more states doing redistricting more and more often, but that’s another problem for another day.

The trouble I have is that elections are different from other political processes. You may believe that a President’s appointments to government agencies are outrageously politically motivated. But there is nothing illegal about this, so you are basically stuck. Except, you can vote him out of office. But if the electoral process itself has become corrupt, and your ability to a fair election is gone, there is no hope at all. That is why I wish that the Court had been willing to take a more negative view of what happened in Texas.

On the Guantanamo ruling, the Court came down against Bush, stating that the President lacked the congressional authority to conduct the military tribunals he established. That’s fine as far as it goes. But the ruling said nothing about the legality of detaining prisoners indefinitely without ever charging them. The ruling also clearly implied that, if Congress gives its approval (which it may well do), Bush could soon have the authority he needs to continue with business as usual. So while the media report this as a “setback” for Bush, I don’t see it as a very big one.

Still, the “real” problem here goes beyond the details of the rulings themselves. The problem is this: In both cases, the majority was the bare minimum of 5 justices. One vote in the other direction and the outcome would have been reversed. So, in some sense, it is not accurate to state that “the Court ruled” as much as it is to say “the court split and could not come to an agreement, which means we go with what the five vote majority decided.”

Yes, I know. That’s the way the system works. If a candidate for office wins by one vote, he still wins. But, perhaps naively, I have viewed the Supreme Court as a bit different. Remember those committee meetings you attended (there must be at least one or two) where the Chairman said that the goal was not simply to get a majority to agree, but to get a consensus? That’s how I view the Supreme Court. The Court is supposed to be the final arbiter of what is “true” in our legal system, at least in interpreting the Constitution. If 4 justices on the bench view the “truth” in the opposite direction from the majority, why should the average citizen place much weight to the majority view. Why not simply say “Heck, even the justices can’t agree on who is right and wrong here. So why should I believe that the majority got it right?” When jurors have to reach a verdict in a trial, the Court instructs them to keep working until they get a unanimous decision, or you ultimately wind up with a “hung” jury. But the Supreme Court plays by very different rules.

I would like to think that the Court decisions are not simply made on the basis of politics, on whether you are a “conservative” or a “liberal” justice. It has been my belief that justices should rise above their political biases to reach a conclusion that strives for a non-political interpretation of the law.

And yes. I know. In the end, judgments are still matters of interpretation and we cannot expect even fair-minded Supreme Court justices to always agree. In any case, politically-motivated justices are not a new phenomenon. Still, as with much of the rest of our current political landscape, the divisiveness seems more constant and more extreme than has generally been the case in the past. Of course, getting consensus would be easy if all the justices were of a similar mind. My point here is that I believe the justices should seek more of a consensus even when they initially disagree.

I have read that Chief Justice Roberts recognizes this as a problem and wishes to get rulings with a greater number on the majority side. He hopes to achieve this by narrowing the scope of controversial rulings so as to widen the number of justices that can agree to a ruling. While this may lead to more decisions that mainly support the status quo, I would still like to give it try. How refreshing it would be to see 7-2, 8-1 or even 9-0 rulings coming from the Court on controversial cases.

I have little hope that rulings can ever be narrow enough to gain Scalia’s support (when he is initially on the minority side) and share similar doubts about Thomas (whose main function appears to be to listen to Scalia and then say “What he said!”). So maybe 7-2 is the best we can hope for in many cases. But even that would go a long way to restore a belief that a Supreme Court ruling is the best reasoned and unbiased judgment of the best judicial minds in the country attempting to reach a common consensus, and not just a politically motivated split decision where the majority view is mainly determined by which political party appointed the most justices.