Life in the technological fast lane

I haven't owned a car in a decade. Living in Tokyo, I don't really need one. Public transportation and taxis get me everywhere I need to go in the city with a minimum of fuss and expense. Back in Canada, I nearly lived in my car, putting 20-30,000 kilometers a year on the succession of old jalopies I owned. Living out in the countryside or in the suburbs in Canada, a car was an absolute necessity and given the totally inadequate nature of public transit even in the largest cities, having a car even in an urban setting was mighty useful. And expensive ("gas is how much a liter this week?"). And stressful ("traffic is backed up how far?"). And dirty and smelly and noisy and all the other things that go with a gasoline powered vehicle. Traffic in Tokyo is insane and the air is already nearly unbreathable anyways, so as long as I'm here, I don't want a car.
I write about a lot of pretty nasty things on this blog - politics, hypocrisy, war, pestilence, corruption, stupidity and petty meaness and ignorance (and that's just Canadian Prime Minister's office) -- so its really nice to mention something positive for a change.

MDI is a French company that is going to save the world if people give them half a chance. They have created a radical new reimagining of the automobile industry, based on building small local plants that manufacture cars for a local market. Imagine a car built right at the dealership. Their labour-intensive plant design allows for an environmentally-friendly car to be built every half hour at a very, very reasonable cost - meaning lots of steady, decent-paying jobs building non-polluting products where they will be sold. No more having to head to the big city for a factory job. No more stinking industrial hellscapes. No need to ship vehicles thousands of miles to market. Hopefully, their cars will be available in Europe and the US this year.

Oh, and did I mention the cars run on compressed air? No need to waste food crops on biofuels, no need to mess with superflammable hydrogen or propane, no need for gasoline. There is a hybrid model that will run on anything from gasoline to alcohol and give you about 80 km per liter of fuel intended for highway driving, but for city driving, you just hook them up to an air compressor and you can go about 100 km before you need a refill. The bodies are mostly fiberglass, so they never rust. Hook that ordinary air compressor up to a neighbourhood windmill and you might never pay to run your car again. And the basic model sells for between $7000 and $12,000.

They may never replace the gasoline-engine roadster for long-distance highway driving, but think what it would do for air quality if you replaced every taxi, delivery vehicle, commuter car and bus in a city like Tokyo or Los Angeles or Mexico City with something that has zero emissions. Think how much money could be saved in fuel costs. And the loudest thing in them is probably the car stereo.

cross-posted from the Woodshed.

Note: Case the joint before trying to rob it.

This may be a candidate for the Darwin Awards. Two balaclava-clad would be robbers, one wielding a machete and the other a samurai sword (go figure) might have done better to check out the patrons of the establishment first.

Machete wielding masked bandits picked the wrong club to rob yesterday - 40 biker club members were meeting there.

Police said the robbers raided the Regents Park Sporting Club about 8.50pm yesterday, ordering people at the bar to lie on the floor.

But the robbers failed to notice 40 members of the Southern Cross Cruiser Club, gathered in the nearby auditorium.

Oh... oops.

"The two guys burst in with machetes and started waving them around and intimidating people," said bikie club founder "The Bear".

"They walked in to try and do a robbery and thought there'd just be people playing bingo and poker machines.

"But there were also 40 blokes there having a social night and it's come unstuck for them."

Keywords to keep in mind if you plan on robbing a place. One of the regulars is named "The Bear". Unstuck... not happy.

The robbers immediately fled on seeing the bikies approaching, with one running through a plate glass window, leaping off a five-metre balcony and running through a bowling green, and the other escaping behind the bar.

But biker club president Jerry "Jester" van Cornwall and other members ran to the back of the club, waiting for the fleeing robber to emerge from the back entrance.

"As this guy opened up the roller door we crashed tackled him in the doorway," van Cornwall told ABC 702 radio.

The man wriggled free, but was pursued and crash-tackled again by Mr van Cornwall, who restrained him until police arrived.

When being pursued by 40 unstuck bikers, a plate glass window is no obstacle. "Restrained" according to other reports means "hog-tied".

"It was very hard to see the expression on their faces because of the balaclavas, but I imagine it was something along lines of 'Oh shit, what have we done here?'."

Pucker factor 5, Mr. Sulu.

Emphasizing the point that you should always know your target and if it's a biker hangout you might want to give it a pass:

Regents Park Sporting Club manager Eddie Kiosoff said the bikers had been regulars at the club for about a year, visiting a few nights a week.

Just to clarify, the Southern Cross Cruiser Club is not an outlaw biker gang. They just don't like it when their evening becomes unstuck.

Let us focus on the surge... oh look! A pony!

Shorter Paul Mirengoff: If Bush's plan were working there would be endless praise and a detailed analysis of every bullet spent and every MRE consumed. It's not working so we have nothing to say. But keep reading because we all wish we had a pony.

The devil is in the details.

D.C. lawyer vs Basseteer.

No contest.