Eideard

Chevy Volt belonging to Lyle Stuart, founder of GM-Volt.com

My Chevrolet Volt was delivered on December 17th 2010, and as of today I have owned and operated the vehicle for a full year.

It is nearly five years in fact since I first founded this website in an effort to gain and sustain national attention on electric cars and this vehicle in particular, and to push GM to develop it…

To this day I still get a thrill when I jump in and power it up. I drive often with a smile on my face. I thoroughly love not using gas almost of of the time, and having the safety and freedom to kick in the gas generator when needed.

I have found the car of impeccably high quality and 100% reliable performance in all kinds of driving situations and environments. The car is worthy of all the awards it has received.

Thus far I have put on 8,635 miles and used a paltry 36.6 gallons of gas with a lifetime fuel efficiency of 237 miles per gallon…

My oil life still says 56% and I haven’t changed it. I rotated the tires at 7,500 miles and had a software upgrade performed…

Though perhaps not important, I am a bit surprised GM won’t meet its first year target of 10,000 cars. Considering all the attention and robust discussion I observed while running this site, and the calls by many for great volumes, I was sure demand would be higher. Eventually I still think it will. A lot of it is economic. In these tough financial times with gas prices stable, the $41,000 without tax break price tag remains out of reach for many. It is great though that the car is on the road so that in the future, through economies of scale the price will drop and more will be sold. As well, surely some are waiting for the first generation to work out its kinks and are watching on the sidelines eventually planning to buy a next generation model.

There were naysayers ever since the Volt concept was announced in January 2007, and many are still here today and will be ad infinitum. They may never be silenced, but the reality is GM has made the dream come true of a mass production electric car with range extender and it is an awesome thing indeed. I also think its fair to say the company ushered in a new era of accessible electric transportation as essentially every automaker has followed suit with electric cars of their own.

Lyle is right about the price. Certainly in my family. I’d love to have a Volt be our next car; but, the cost/benefit ratio just ain’t worth it – yet. We’d need an extra 10 years beyond the 10 year minimum we look at when purchasing a vehicle. Even though – we buy good enough designs and practice sufficient maintenance – we have gone well beyond that 10 year number with our existing passenger car and pickup truck. The Volvo has almost 30 years and 280,000 miles on it. The Dodge pickup is a 1994 and has gone over 220,000 miles.

Right now, the leading contenders to replace the Volvo are the Prius Aqua – landing next year, the VW Golf diesel and the electric Mitsubishi i-Miev. After federal tax credits – we get squat from the state of New Mexico – they would cost $9-14K less than the Volt.

Too bad we don’t warehouse dwi addicted as well as we do ideologues

It is the other Guantánamo, an archipelago of federal prisons that stretches across the country, hidden away on back roads. Today, it houses far more men convicted in terrorism cases than the shrunken population of the prison in Cuba that has generated so much debate.

An aggressive prosecution strategy, aimed at prevention as much as punishment, has sent away scores of people. They serve long sentences, often in restrictive, Muslim-majority units, under intensive monitoring by prison officers. Their world is spare…

In recent weeks, Congress has reignited an old debate, with some arguing that only military justice is appropriate for terrorist suspects. But military tribunals have proved excruciatingly slow and imprisonment at Guantánamo hugely costly — $800,000 per inmate a year, compared with $25,000 in federal prison.

The criminal justice system, meanwhile, has absorbed the surge of terrorism cases since 2001 without calamity, and without the international criticism that Guantánamo has attracted for holding prisoners without trial. A decade after the Sept. 11 attacks, an examination of how the prisons have handled the challenge of extremist violence reveals some striking facts:

Big numbers. Today, 171 prisoners remain at Guantánamo. As of Oct. 1, the federal Bureau of Prisons reported that it was holding 362 people convicted in terrorism-related cases, 269 with what the bureau calls a connection to international terrorism — up from just 50 in 2000. An additional 93 inmates have a connection to domestic terrorism.

Lengthy sentences. Terrorists who plotted to massacre Americans are likely to die in prison. Faisal Shahzad, who tried to set off a car bomb in Times Square in 2010, is serving a sentence of life without parole at the Supermax, as are Zacarias Moussaoui, a Qaeda operative arrested in 2001, and Mr. Reid, the shoe bomber, among others. But many inmates whose conduct fell far short of outright terrorism are serving sentences of a decade or more, the result of a calculated prevention strategy to sideline radicals well before they could initiate deadly plots.

Special units. Since 2006, the Bureau of Prisons has moved many of those convicted in terrorism cases to two special units that severely restrict visits and phone calls. But in creating what are Muslim-dominated units, prison officials have inadvertently fostered a sense of solidarity and defiance, and set off a long-running legal dispute over limits on group prayer. Officials have warned in court filings about the danger of radicalization, but the Bureau of Prisons has nothing comparable to the deradicalization programs instituted in many countries.

Quiet releases. More than 300 prisoners have completed their sentences and been freed since 2001. Their convictions involved not outright violence but “material support” for a terrorist group; financial or document fraud; weapons violations; and a range of other crimes. About half are foreign citizens and were deported; the Americans have blended into communities around the country, refusing news media interviews and avoiding attention.

RTFA. It examines much more than the simple case for dollars and sense I pointed out in the headline – the author points out in the 3rd paragraph.

Are we supposed to feel confidence, assured that President Obama has agreed to every facet of what Bush/Cheney Republicans established as fiscal responsibility?

Joe Cohen started work on malaria vaccine at GSK in 1987

Millions of small children’s lives could be saved by a new vaccine which has been shown to halve the risk of malaria in the first large-scale trials across seven African countries.

The long-awaited results of the largest-ever malaria vaccine study, involving 15,460 babies and small children, show that it could massively reduce the impact of the much-feared killer disease. Malaria takes nearly 800,000 lives every year – most of them small children under the age of five. It damages many more.

The vaccine has been in development for two decades – the brainchild of scientists at the UK drug company GlaxoSmithKline, which has promised to sell it at no more than a fraction over cost-price, with the excess being ploughed back into further tropical disease research…

GSK’s chief executive, Andrew Witty told the Guardian he was thrilled for the scientists who were thought by many of their peers to be attempting the impossible when they started work on a vaccine 25 years ago.

“When the team was first shown the data, quite a number of them broke down in tears,” he said. “It was the emotion of what they had achieved – the first vaccine against a parasitic form of infection. They were overwhelmed. It says something about the amount of heart that has gone into this project…”

Witty says he is exhorting everybody involved in the vaccine’s production to pare their costs to the bone. “We are absolutely dedicated to making it as low as possible,” he said.

Bravo.

Damned few corporations – especially in pharmaceuticals – are willing to work on solutions for low-profit markets, low-return investments. GSK and Mr. Witty deserve special credit for joining forces with WHO and the Gates Foundation.

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On Tuesday, 24 February 2009, two days before Obama presented a proposed budget to Congress, Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and other House Democrats called on the Obama administration to reduce military spending, setting up a potential clash between House liberals and the White House. At a White House summit on fiscal responsibility the day before, Obama had cast doubt on the future of an $11.2 billion project to upgrade the fleet of presidential helicopters. But Obama has shown no indication that he plans to reduce, or even freeze, overall defense spending, which will be around $650 billion this fiscal year.

Frank says that’s a mistake. “To accomplish his goals of expanding health care and other important quality of life services without ballooning the deficit,” Frank noted, Obama has no choice but to decrease military spending. He said that spending excessive amounts of money on the defense budget “precludes” the Obama administration from addressing other priorities: “If we do not get military spending under control, we will not be able to respond to important domestic needs.”

Acknowledging that Obama does plan to save hundreds of billions of dollars by withdrawing from Iraq, Frank said the President must go further and take big whacks at big-ticket military projects. He pointed to programs like the Air Force’s F-22 fighter, the Osprey troop transport, and missile defense as expensive, unnecessary Cold War-era boondoggles. He singled out missile defense in Eastern Europe as a particularly wasteful use of American taxpayers’ money. “I will confess that I am not a regular reader of Iranian-issued fatwahs,” Frank quipped. “And probably one of the ones I missed was the one where they threatened devastation against Prague. We plan to spend several billion dollars to protect the Czech Republic against Iran. That’s either a great waste of money or a very belated way to make up for Munich…”

But don’t look to Congress to reduce military spending on its own, Frank said: “Left entirely on our own, the Congress will not do the cuts in the military budget that ought to be there.” Military spending cuts will only come, he said, if there’s grassroots pressure for them…

Overdue. We can cut over 20% of the military budget just by bringing our troops home from the 175 countries where they are stationed. At a minimum, the cost of maintaining someone in the military is doubled when they are stationed outside the continental US.

Go to www.congress.org and email your Congress-critter and President Obama. Tell ‘em to Bring the Troops Home Now!

Medicare has helped millions of seniors since the 60s receive the medical care they need. If Paul Ryan and the Republicans’ plan goes through, those of us who are younger than 55 years of age will continue to pay into the Medicare system, but when we retire we will receive a “voucher” to buy our own private insurance. The plan is supposed to “save” Medicare, but some reports that are trickling out say these are voodoo numbers the GOP and Rep. Ryan are promoting…

“But because commercial insurers cost more to run than government plans, the Wisconsin Republican’s proposal to privatize Medicare starting in 2022 would actually spark a dramatic increase in how much the nation spends on healthcare for the elderly, according to an independent analysis by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office…”

According to the CBO estimates, Ryan’s privatization plan would increase the cost of healthcare more than $12,510 a year, for our seniors…

The average American would receive a “voucher” for $8,000, which is roughly what the CBO estimates Medicare would have to pay out for the average senior in 2022. In addition to the government’s costs, the CBO estimates that seniors, in 2022, would dish out about $6,150.00 in out-of-pocket costs in the Medicare system. That totals an average cost of health care for participating seniors, in 2022, to be $14,770.

Under the GOP’s privatization plan, the cost to buy the health insurance policy would cost about $20,520 per year – leaving the seniors out-of-pocket in the amount of $12,510 or more than twice what they would pay in 2022 should the Medicare system we currently have continue forward…

The “vouchers” will be linked to the CPI (consumer price index), not the inflation of medical care expenses or health insurance costs. This protects the government and screws the seniors, period! So as years pass, the vouchers will cover less and less. This will further shift the cost of medical care onto the seniors’ pocketbooks…

So who will lose in this proposal. EVERYONE! Seniors pay more out-of-pocket and the younger generations pay higher premiums. Wait! There is one winner, health insurance companies, they will be raiding the U.S Treasury.

Anyone surprised at this conclusion? The Congressional Budget Office is about as stodgy and straight as anything could be in Washington, DC. They will be accused of everything from socialism to pederasty by the Republican Party and the Koch Bros KoolAid Party. The facts remain the same.

Thanks, Cinaedh

Click on photo for map

China is proposing to build a rail link to rival the almost century-old Panama canal, the Colombian president has said. The 220km rail connection would connect Cartagena, on the northern Atlantic coast of Colombia, with its Pacific coast – making it easier for China to export its goods through the Americas and import raw materials such as coal.

“It’s a real proposal … and it is quite advanced,” Juan Manuel Santos told the Financial Times. Although the link would be almost three times the length of the canal that cuts through neighbouring Panama, the president added: “The studies [the Chinese] have made on the costs of transporting per tonne, the cost of investment, they all work out…

Panama also has a rail route, built almost 60 years before the canal, which is more expensive than the waterway for shippers but faster…

A shipping executive told the newspaper that moving containers on to and off the link at either end would probably cost $200 each in addition to $100 fees for the rail transport. In comparison, fees for the canal are around $100 a container…

Well, that’s one estimate. Any others?

The ministry of foreign affairs in Beijing confirmed the proposal.

The project is reportedly one of several Chinese proposals to improve transport links with Asia. The most advanced is a $7.6bn plan to build a 791km railway and expand the port of Buenaventura, on Colombia’s Pacific coast. It would allow up to 40m tonnes of freight a year to be carried from Colombia to its ports and promote the export of coal to China, where demand is rising fast.

Modern container ships get unloaded and loaded faster and more efficiently every year. I don’t see any new technology improving transit via the Panama Canal. All that’s happening there is widening and tweaking the system to allow larger vessels through. None of that would be a problem for the dry land solution proposed in Columbia.

The Ford Focus Electric, like other EVs on the way to market, will give owners the ability to travel without ever visiting a gas station. That’s a very compelling reason to go green, and Ford tells us that its upcoming EV has a lot more going for it than just its lack of petrol. For example, when does an electric car need an oil change? Never, and you’ll also never have to give another thought to oil, fuel or air filters.

Another typical service expense is the tune up, but without spark plugs, plug wires, a radiator or power steering fluid, there won’t be a lot to replace, flush or fill. You’ll also never have to worry about a muffler, water pump, serpentine belt or starter.

Look over Ford’s list of the top 25 things you won’t have to service in a new Focus Electric. The list includes “battery” as one of the items you won’t have to service or replace during the first 150,000 miles of life. Talk about your low-cost service experience…

I admit I hadn’t thought about this aspect of owning an electric car.

The average range of most electric cars coming into the market would allow for forgetting to charge the battery for several days. The cost of an electric commute is tantalizing. Skipping 95% of the maintenance requirements of an infernal combustion engine adds significantly to the package.

Daylife/AP Photo used by permission

India’s former telecommunications minister has been arrested by detectives investigating suspected corruption in the government auction of 2G mobile phone licences.

Andimuthu Raja was forced to resign as India’s telecommunications minister in November following allegations that corruption in the allocation of phone licences had cost Indian taxpayers more than £22 billion in lost revenues.

Public anger erupted over the issue in the same month when secretly taped telephone conversations of one of India’s top public relations figures revealed she had campaigned for Mr Raja’s appointment as telecommunications minister while working as a lobbyist for one of the main beneficiaries of the 2G auction.

Protests on the issue and demands for a full inquiry into the affair by India’s opposition Bharatiya Janata Party brought the country’s parliament to a standstill in its last session.

Mr Raja was still being questioned by detectives from the Central Bureau of Investigation on Wednesday night while two of his former civil servants were also arrested…

He denied the charges and said he had followed the same system set in place by the previous BJP-led government. He also said his decision to sell licences cheaply had been a key factor in the rapid increase in the number of Indians using mobile telephones. India today has 730 million mobile phone subscribers — more than those who have access to a toilet.

I’ll leave the jokes about mobile-phones and toilets to folks running for office in India.

Though it’s tempting.

America continues to lag behind other nations when it comes to gains in life expectancy, and commonly cited causes for our poor performance—obesity, smoking, traffic fatalities and homicide—are not to blame, according to a study by researchers at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health.

The study looked at health spending; behavioral risk factors like obesity and smoking; and 15-year survival rates for men and women ages 45 and 65 in the U.S. and 12 other nations — Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.

While the U.S. has achieved gains in 15-year survival rates decade by decade between 1975 and 2005, the researchers discovered that other countries have experienced even greater gains, leading the U.S. to slip in country ranking, even as per capita health care spending in the U.S. increased at more than twice the rate of the comparison countries.

Fifteen-year survival rates for men and women ages 45 and 65 in the U.S. have fallen relative to the other 12 countries over the past 30 years. Forty-five year old U.S. white women fared the worst—by 2005 their 15-year survival rates were lower than that of all the other countries. Moreover, the survival rates of this group in 2005 had not even surpassed the 1975 15-year survival rates for Swiss, Swedish, Dutch or Japanese women. The U.S. ranking for 15-year life expectancy for 45-year-old men also declined, falling from 3rd in 1975 to 12th in 2005.

When the researchers compared risk factors among the 13 countries, they found very little difference in smoking habits between the U.S. and the comparison countries—in fact, the U.S. had faster declines in smoking between 1975 and 2005 than almost all of the other countries. In terms of obesity, researchers found that, while people in the U.S. are more likely to be obese, this was also the case in 1975, when the U.S. was not so far behind in life expectancy.

In fact, even as the comparison countries pulled ahead of the U.S. in terms of survival, the percentage of obese men and women actually grew faster in most of those countries between 1975 and 2005. Finally, examining homicide and traffic fatalities, the researchers found that they have accounted for a stable share of U.S. deaths over time, and would not account for the significant change in 15-year life expectancy the study identified.

The researchers say that the failure of the U.S. to make greater gains in survival rates with its greater spending on health care may be attributable to flaws in the overall health care system. Specifically, they point to the role of unregulated fee-for-service payments and our reliance on specialty care as possible drivers of high spending without commensurate gains in life expectancy.

“This study provides stark evidence that the U.S. health care system has been failing Americans for years,” said Commonwealth Fund President Karen Davis. “It is unacceptable that the U.S. obtains so much less than should be expected from its unusually high spending on health care relative to other countries.”

Hear, hear. Although I’m in comparatively good health for my age, etc. – actuarial tables still have me rolling along behind the hopes established for my kin up on PEI – 40 years ago!

I see no proof either for snow or beer accounting for the difference.