Dopey NPR story about the CAFE standards

"It's a very tricky situation," says Marc Cannon, a top executive at AutoNation, the country's biggest car retailer.

Cannon says consumers care about the environment, but they care even more about money. Unless the price of gas is consistently high, Cannon says there just isn't enough demand for the fuel-efficient cars Obama wants manufacturers to build.

"This summer gasoline was $4, and every single automaker was trying to put out fuel-efficient vehicles as fast as they could," Cannon says. "All of a sudden, come December, gasoline drops to $2 and nobody wants fuel-efficient vehicles."

via npr.org

Completely missed the point. The market environment in which consumers switch to/from fuel efficient cars was one without strict CAFE standards. With the standards in place, consumers won't be switching to/from fuel efficient cars -- all the cars will be more fuel efficient (at least all the new ones). That's the whole point of the standard. I don't understand what these paragraphs have to do with anything.

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For your class

via feministing.com

I don't even know where to begin.

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Hurrah!

Radiohead Recording New Album

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Red alert, batten down the hatches, let the dogs out, etc. Radiohead are currently recording new music with longtime producer Nigel Godrich, according to a BBC interview with bassist Colin Greenwood.

"It's at the stage where we've got the big Lego box out and we've tipped it out on the floor and we're just looking at all the bits and thinking what's next?...It was very noisy and chaotic and really fun," says Greenwood.

via pitchfork.com

Not that the last five albums have gotten old, but this news is like finding out you're going to meet your new best friend.

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"New Zealand Launches Hookup Airways"

Register on the website and you can look for love in categories that include American boyfriend, Canadian girlfriend, Kiwi friend, and, our favorite, “business contact. The airline says 75 people have signed up. They’re about evenly split between North Americans and Kiwis. Men and women are also equally represented. Air New Zealand hopes passengers will be in a romantic mood just thinking about their destination.

via wired.com

What's worse, sharing a 13 hour flight with an awkward stranger who thinks you two ought to be soul mates, or finding out your soul mate lives in New Zealand? Love conquers all, but I don't know too many successful long-distance relationships that span the Pacific Ocean. Of course, you could just have sex. Who doesn't look/smell better after a 13 hour flight?

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Jesse V, large and in charge

Jesse Ventura on Larry King:

Jesse Ventura: I would prosecute every person who was involved in that torture. I would prosecute the people that did it, I would prosecute the people that ordered it, because torture is against the law.”

Larry King: You were a Navy S.E.A.L.

Jesse Ventura: Yes, and I was waterboarded [in training] so I know…It is torture…I’ll put it to you this way: You give me a waterboard, Dick Cheney and one hour, and I’ll have him confess to the Sharon Tate murders.

via harpers.org

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Poor ASU

via gawker.com

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Ha, Pooh. (Or the sound a pig makes when it sneezes.)

via mail.google.com

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NL efficiency, 5/4/09

Latest effiiciency data and motion chart here. Bad week for the Mets. Oliver Perez was demoted to the bullpen, and the bullpen let a couple of victories slip away, offsetting continued improvement in offensive efficiency. Now estimating that Mets have third most-losses due to inefficiencies, behind Nationals and Rockies.

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Her first album was good, this one's better

Actor - St. Vincent

Seems rather like what the movie Revolutionary Road would sound like as an album ... yearning, domestic violence, discontent.

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Profoundly idiotic Fox business channel anchor doesn't understand "risk"

via prospect.org

Robert Frank takes the uncontroversial position that any personal economic success involves some luck. I don't see how this could possibly be controversial, since making it through any given day takes some luck. But Stuart Varney, anchor, is insulted and outraged at the suggestion that it wasn't his talent and hard-work that got him his high-paying job. Then comes this bit, at the 1:47 mark:

"That's outrageous. That is outrageous. What about the risk I took? .. Do you know what level of risk is required for this level of success?!"

Stuart Varney decides that his strongest argument in contending that luck was not involved in his success is to ... contend that luck was involved in his success. After all, what is risk but luck? Sure, he might have taken good risks, but risk by its nature has a probabilistic element. Even if he took only good risks, say gambles where the chances are 95% of winning and each is needed to "be successful," after 5 of those gambles, he only has a 77% chance of being successful. If, as he says, he was constantly taking risks early in his career, we can reasonably assume that the probability of his having won all those gambles he was taking is pretty small. But he's successful, despite all of his risky behavior. Lucky him.

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