States not allowed to vote in Dem Primaries.

I hope for the country's sake that I'm the last one to find out about this. I hope this was all over the news, and I somehow missed it. Sadly, I have a feeling this story got buried and this is the first most of you have heard about it (if you're reading this right now, before Michigan's Primary). In case you also haven't heard, Michigan and Florida have been penalized and their votes in the Democrat primaries won't be counted!

This New York Times Democrat Primary schedule sums it up pretty well. Basically, these states wanted their primaries to be held sooner, so that they could have more of an impact. The state Democratic Committees didn't consult with the right people before they did it, one thing led to another, and now the democrats in these two states don't get to vote in the primaries. Well, they might get to vote, but their votes aren't counted for anything.

This should be a wake-up call! The primary voting system really sucks.

First, Iowa and New Hampshire get an unfair advantage by always being first. I appreciate starting in one or two states to get the politicians to focus on local campaigning, but why does it have to be the same two states every year? It should be changed so that each election cycle, a different state gets to benefit from first in the primary schedule.

Second, everyones vote should count. Just because some people on Democrat Committees in Michigan and Florida screwed up, it isn't right to void the votes of millions of people.

Third, now that Michigan doesn't count, the first four states to vote on who the Democratic nominee should be, voted for Bush in the last two elections. Since the nomination process usually gets decided by the early states, the Democratic nominee is essentially picked by the voters in Republican states. Not cool. Again, my solution is that the the Primary schedule should rotate so that different states benefit each time around.

Fourth, voting for delegates, so they get to go to the convention then have the option of voting again is crazy. The votes should be counted and the candidate should be picked by the popular vote. As for how that would affect the actual ceremony, thats easy. Delegates can go to the convention and make the same appearance as they do now. They just don't get to vote.

Enough said. Now get out there and make sure you're registered to vote!!!

New Calendar

Here we go with the long awaited new calendar project announcement!! This is a work in progress, if you have opinions or suggestions that can help further the development and implementation of this calendar, please speak up.

The issues the new calendar addresses:

1, Notable dates and holidays on the current calendar fail to carry information about both the day of the week and calendar date of the original event.

-Anyone know what day of the week July 4, 1776 was? Its not on wikipedia.

-What day of the week were you born on?

-Do you still remember that September 11th was on a Tuesday?

-Thanksgiving? Thursday. What was the date of the original feast? Dec 4th.

-Election day? Tuesday the what?

-Memorial day? Monday the what?

2, Sometimes holidays fall on inconvenient days of the week. Did anyone work a half day on Christmas eve Monday this year? Or New Years Eve Monday? I didn't travel home for the Fourth of July this time because it was on a Wednesday.

The new calendar resolves these issues in one simple stroke: January 1st resets the week to the same day of the week each year. That means with 365 days in a year, there would be one extra day remaining. One holiday would land on a three-day weekend between two five-day weeks. For example, if January 1st was a Sunday, the preceding Dec 30th and 31st would both be Saturdays.

I know what you're thinking: "this would never happen." Well, no one said it was going to be easy. And, the only way it could happen is if we develop the idea to a level where it makes so much sense that its hard to reject. I think its time to get a team together to hash out the idea.

1. For starters we should see where the holidays would land depending what day the year starts on.

2. Then figure out where the 3-day weekend should go.

3. Then think of corporate sponsors. This is where it could really get interesting. The airlines love Thanksgiving. Hallmark loves Fathers and Mothers day. Flower stores and restaurants love Valentines day. What if we could strengthen the impact of certain holidays? For example, the airlines lost my business this year because of the Fourth of July landing on Wednesday.

4. Then there is Leap Year. This will have to get special attention. The easiest thing to do would be to make another three-day weekend on the years that currently have a Feb 29th. It would be a lot easier if Feb 28th was a Fri or Sat. If not, it would either have to move to the end of a month where there is a weekend, or if February really seemed like the right time for it, there could be a 6-day work week with two consecutive Mondays or something. That would be terrible.

5. And most importantly, what should it be named?

Who is on board?

Jeep names

OK, let's talk about the Jeep Rubicon? Here it is next to a Wrangler.

Of course, 'Rubicon' is from the phrase to 'cross the Rubicon'. That's when the worlds greatest democratic civilization was taken over by the elected leader who then made himself dictator. According to Wikipedia, the phrase is similar to "passing the point of no return". If you don't remember your high school History lessons, thats when Julius Ceasar "marched on Rome". It was illegal for his army to be on the civilian side of the river, the Rubicon. He took over his own country by force and turned the republic into a dictatorship. It marks the fall of the greatest civilization the world had ever seen.

Fast forward to 2003. America, arguably the greatest country in the world, had just started one of the most insane wars in modern history. Things were really starting to look bad. It had many people wondering if it marks the end of an era, with many people actually predicting a fall similar to that of Ancient Rome. Such as the book Are We Rome?: The Fall of an Empire and the Fate of America. So, I'm driving along, depressed about American cars, which are usually gas guzzlers. And the car companies are tied into the oil and war profiteering rackets our government so carefully supports. Then I see the Jeep Rubicon!

Am I the only one who laughed out loud? Its really great that an American car company would give this name to a car at such a critical time. It would seem like somebody at Jeep was making a political protest.

Perhaps some anti-war employee slipped it past the higher ups, because now they have the "Patriot". Which, seems more like a pro-war car name.

The 'Rubicon' was of course, following the 'Liberty'. Its hard to tell if that one's loaded, although it came soon after 9/11. So perhaps its a "United We Stand" type thing.

I look forward to their next car. Anyone have ideas for what they should name it?

Movie Review: Jimmy Carter Man From Plains (2007)

The film is a documentary of his book tour for "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid". I cant remember ever feeling so good about America, how we're viewed around the world, and really feeling proud of what our President does in the Middle East. It was a strange feeling and a stark contrast to our current president saying Israel should be a model for Iraq. His responses to some of the nearly impossible questions he was asked were simple, clear and educational.

The film's main topic is the controversy that has followed the books release. Opponents of the book especially take offense to the word "Apartheid" in the title and respond with character attacks on Carter calling him anti-semetic, racist, a liar, anti-Israeli etc. If his goal is peace, and the Israelis also want peace, doesn't that put them on the same side? Carter makes it quite clear throughout the film that he wants Peace in Israel. In fact, calling for peace is also in the title of his book, "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid". In the film, and supposedly in the book, he says the way to get peace is for Israel to withdraw its occupation and settlements. Its part of a fairly simple perspective that REALLY has some people upset. Here is the trailer:

What really gets me though, and Carter expresses his frustration with this in the film, is how antagonistic some people are against his recommendations for peace. Here's a full page New York Times ad from the Anti-Defamation League.
If these people actually want peace, rather than discredit the book and the author, they should engage in the debate. Do they really think things like a highway on Palestinian land connecting two Israeli settlements or laws that sentence any Palestinian riding in a Jewish car on it to 5 years in prison help bring about peace?? Nevermind the Apartheid, that sounds a bit like Nazi Germany!

If people really want to support these things, explain why. Don't attack the person who brought up the conversation. Sadly, I suspect many of the people who angry with Carter, in particular those who object to his use of the word "Apartheid" in the books title, don't realize how bad the occupation really is.

I suspect Carter got the idea for his book's title from a piece in the Ha'aretz from 2001 on Raymond Louw. At 74, Raymond Louw, visited the West Bank. He was the editor-in-chief of a South African newspaper, the Daily Rand, covering their apartheid for 11 years. He knows the situation in South Africa as well as just about anyone. After his visit to various towns in the West Bank, his opinion was that the Israeli occupation is WORSE than the apartheid. Obviously, the point is not to downplay the apartheid in South Africa, its to emphasize how bad the occupation really is. “It’s depressing. This is a city [Avraham Avinu area] under military occupation without any rights for the occupied. There was never a situation like this with apartheid [in South Africa]. The control in the black areas was not so forceful. I don’t think you can compare the two situations. Under apartheid, there was a recognition that the blacks would continue to live in these areas. Here the impression is that the objective is to push the Palestinians out.”

The film shows Jimmy Carter being confronted by these forces. I assume and hope that the people who denounce Carter are naïve about the atrocities of the Israeli Apartheid and not actually supportive of them. He sets a great example of dealing with these people in a civil way thats simple and clear.

I recommend the film for anyone who wishes they had time to read the book. I would like to read the book, but after the film, I feel like I have.

I am currently reading "The Israel Lobby and American Foreign Policy". I'll write my next review on it. In short, its amazing.

Letter to the Editor

Hi there Mr. Revkin (regarding http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/07/science/earth/07climate.html):

I'm Parker Sellers, 25, with a degree in Physics. I live in Los Angeles. There is one very important point on global warming that I never hear in the public media. The point is this:

Our planet's weather is a chaotic system with "local stability". Local does not refer to physical locality, but the conditions and variables that affect the weather. For example, the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere and the amount of sunlight. When these variables change, the weather patterns change a little, but the system is still chaotic, and it still generally has the same patterns as usual. Thats the stability part.

So, when the input is fixed , the output is chaotic with stability within a range. Imagine a library of possible weather patterns that seem to be be picked randomly. When the input is changed slightly, that library of possibilities changes. When the input is changed dramatically, the system will lose stability. That could mean desertification or it could mean ice age. Our current conditions would be almost impossible to return to.

Here is a metaphor that will help visualize it. Imagine the earths gravitational pull to the moon were to decrease slightly. The moons orbit would get bigger, and it would look like that of a comet, not a perfect circle. However, if it was decreased enough, the moon would escape earth's pull entirely and be lost forever.

The risk of global warming is not only that everything warms and causes more flooding: its that the conditions change enough to cause devestation, such as another ice age.

Thanks for reading this, please do your best to enlighten the community about this point.
-Parker

New Office!!!

Yay! I now have a view! This is what Los Angeles looks like from my desk, overlooking the Tar pit, Wilshire blvd, downtown LA, and mild smog at sunset. The white spot you see on top of downtown is a reflection of the sun off the top window on the Library tower, also known as the US Bank tower. Can you guess what building I'm in??

I know some of you work downtown. If you work in any building visible in this view, let me know!! Especially if you have access to a window facing west. That way I can wave to you. Or maybe shoot a red pointer laser. That'd be cool if you could see it.

Welcome International Visitors!!!

I know you're out there. I have google analytics on this blog. Here is the chart of visitors in the last week or so. That includes visitors from London, Ürumchi, and Ramat Gan. I've been to Ürumchi, well the airport!! I've heard they have mummy of people with red hair there, possibly a Viking explorers. That would be strange though, because its the most landlocked city in the world. (Kashgar is #2 most landlocked). Actually I think they think Ghengis Khan might have been a red head. Crazy, huh?

I just looked up Ramat Gan. I can't tell if its Tel Aviv's Newark or if its more of a twin city. It does have Israel's tallest building and hosts the diamond exchange.

Diamonds in Israel!! This is a topic worth going a little deeper into. By the way, how did they get that photo with no traffic? They must have taken it on a holiday, like Yom Kippur or something. There is a fabulous "online book" available to read for free by Edward Jay Epstien on the history of the diamond industry. Its excellent.

OK, back to work. OH! I almost forgot. My rank as a hollywood star, according to imdb.com is in the 300,000's. Check me out, I bet if I get three visitors to view my page, I'll bump up 100,000 places.

Til next time,
-Parker

Biodiesel

Hi there.

A lot of people ask me, "Where can you find biodiesel? What happens if you can't find it?"

One, the stations are labeled on this map. As you can see, not only are there several in the LA area, but it would be very possible to find stations on road trips, especially in Illinois.

Two, you can fill up on petrodiesel. And no, petrodiesel is not hard to find. Truckers find it, don't they. Its like this: there are two kinds of diesel fuel, when its made from petroleum and when its made from biological oil. All diesel engines can run on either. The effective differences are that the biodiesel yields roughly 10% less power, it doesn't react well with 30 year old seals, it cleans your fuel line, which means if its dirty it might flood the fuel filter with crap in the first months of using it on an old car, and it emits next to no pollutants.

From Biodiesel.org. Check it out for more on Biodiesel, its a good resource.

Wikipedia: TDI engines

If you have been in contact with me in the last 4 months, you've probably heard me talk about my new (used) car that runs on biodiesel: its a 1998 Volkswagen Jetta, with the TDI engine. Here is a picture of an identical car.

Mine gets 41 miles to the gallon and it goes FAST. It turns out the TDI is one of the best engines ever made.

Check out previous year results from the International Engine of the Year Awards. In 1999, when VW released the same TDI engine as in 1998, Volkswagen's TDIs won 3 prizes while BMW's TDIs won another 3 prizes.


Today, I checked out the wikipedia entry for TDI engines. The "fuel" section was, in my opinion, pretty clearly oil industry disinformation against biodiesel. Pasted below is how it used to read. So, what did I do? I fixed it. The current fuel section, hopefully still, is my version, loosely based on the previous one:

TDI engines, particularly newer ones with higher injection pressures, are less forgiving about poor-quality fuel than their 1980s ancestors. No. 2 diesel fuel is recommended since it has a higher cetane number than No. 1 fuel and has lower viscosity (better ability to flow) than heavier fuel oils. While some enthusiasts have run their cars on straight vegetable oil (SVO) or waste vegetable oil (WVO), both are discouraged for new engines, especially since the viscosity is much worse than regular diesel. Biodiesel can also be used if it conforms to specifications, though Volkswagen does not endorse its use in high percentages. In fact, there is some concern that using more than 5% biodiesel in the newer engines may void the Volkswagen manufacturer's warranty, especially in the USA. While it is not clear that the mere act of using biodiesel would be detrimental to the warranty, Volkswagen of America does state that "[s]hould the use of substandard fuels, or higher level blends of biodiesel, damage your engine or fuel system, such damage cannot be covered under warranty." Thus a high-percentage biodiesel user who encounters fuel system problems can reasonably expect difficulty obtaining service under warranty if the biodiesel use is apparent to the dealer. Note that defective fuel (e.g. fuel with a high water content), whether traditional or biodiesel, can damage TDI engines; such damage is naturally not covered under the manufacturer's warranty (but the fuel supplier may bear financial responsibility for the damage).

What is that bit about "Note that defective fuel (e.g. fuel with a high water content), whether traditional or biodiesel, can damage TDI engines"???? It would seem that defective fuel would damage any kind of engine, why would anyone consider that useful information?