Bring This Diesel To The USA, Ford!

So Ford has this new car coming out, and it’s got an awesome MPG rating.  This new Fiesta gets a rated 65 MPG.  Holy Crap!!!  For a five passenger, two-door sub compact car, that is incredible.  And what kind of power plant is hiding under the hood on this monster?  All 89 horsepower coming from a 1.6 litre turbodiesel.  Yes, a diesel.

Ford’s autoshow site lists some intriguing statistics on the car:

The heart of the Fiesta ECOnetic is Ford’s 1.6-liter four-cylinder TDCi turbodiesel engine, which is rated in the U.K. at the equivalent of U.S. 51 mpg in the city, 74 mpg on the highway and 64 mpg on the combined European driving cycle. The 89-hp engine also emits an ultra-low 98g/km of CO2.

Well guess what?  Since it’s a diesel, Ford is not making any plans to bring it to the USA.  Well, not in that configuration anyway.  They will wait until they put a gasoline engine in it, which will cut the mileage in half.  I wish I was kidding, but according to an report from wired.com, Ford is thinking that people are scared of diesel, so they don’t think it will sell.  Come on, Ford, are you serious?  At about the same size and price of other high-mileage cars, this Fiesta will not have anything to set itself apart from the others.  Good job being average, Ford.  Good job not making a name for yourself.  It’s a good thing that your business isn’t in dire straits of running itself into the ground!  Oh wait.  Never mind.  You arleady are.

The USA is already importing a lot of diesel-powered vehicles, including small cars. They aren’t all 18-wheelers.  How are we supposed to get a better infrastructure of fuel delivery systems if we don’t have the cars to feed?  I know, it’s the whole chicken-egg debacle.  Neither one can exist without the other.  How are we supposed to have more non-gasoline-powered vehicles without a good way to fuel them?  How can we have effective non-gasoline fueling locations without the consumer demand?

Hey Ford.  Wake up.  We need cars with better mileage.  Quit acting so scared.  You really need something to boost your sales.  Bring this car, or another like it, to the US market.

Web Search Indicates Society

Sometimes the things that people search for are indicitive of the things that drive our society.  Maybe some people’s searches indicate what is most important in thier lives.  Try it for yourself.  What are the previous things you have searched for?  What did you search for today?

This may be just something because you are bored, or because you really want to find out what’s going on with “x” activity.  But it’s not just you – it’s everyone in your state, you nation, and your planet.  Most search engines focus on the country that you are searching from, so gathering data on other locations may prove a little cumbersome.  I’ll leave that exercise to you.

If you look at the “most popular” searches, you will usually find a wide variety of topics.  Go to Google Trends to find out today’s hot trends.  Using your favorite search engine, look around for “most popular” and see what you see.  Some days it’s the economy, some days it’s health, and some days it is whether or not some rapper got shot.

The particular item that started me thinking about this was when I was looking for help with a particular project.  I didn’t have much luck, so I started messing around with the search string.  Searching for PDF files containing “how do I make” turned up some results i didn’t really intend on seeing.  Yes, I did find some DIY ideas, but I was rather concerned at how many results there were for “how to make a complaint” and how few on how to make ’stuff’ or how to do anything other than complain.

Recently I was also doing some research for a friend on submitting a resume online.  I searched for “post your” and that was as far as I got.  The auto-fill suggestion lines for both Yahoo and Google turned up some things I really was not expecting to see.  I wanted info on posting personal data, but the first few results were regarding posting pictures of wives, girlfriends, and ex-girlfriends.  WOAH.

Someone showed me a silly ‘game’ to play on search engines.  Use someone’s name, and put that, plus another phrase, to see what others are writing.  Ex:  “Mark smells like” or “Lisa needs to” or “Pat should really“.   Are you serious?  Some is silly, some is gross, and some have WAY too much information.  Don’t forget that when you write something on the internet, it’s there forever.

As a society, we spend A LOT of time on the internet.  We are lazy.  Computers have taken over much of our lives.  So what happens when we search for what is searched for?  We see how to complain better.  We see how to upload porn.  We see how to make fun of others.

Grow up already.  Isn’t there more interesting things to do online?  Is this all that we can think to do with all the effort put into the internet?  Sad.

Support Gay Marriage

According to dictionary.com , the word “marriage” usually refers to the legal union of two people – most of the definitions are gender-neutral. Even google’s definitions focus on just ‘people’ and the minority on gender -specific terms or inanimate objects. About as long as the word “marry” has been around, it has been used to describe the joining of two items. It’s usually in reference to people, but it doesn’t have to be – it’s just describing the state of two things that have come together. Historically, marriage has been understood as containing a man and a woman. Most contries in the world recognize this ‘man plus woman’ state, and religious groups worldwide have also historically required this union to be made of a man and a woman.

However, recently in our wonderful age of enlightenment, people have come to realize that the rules must have been wrong for centuries, and same-sex marriages should not only be allowed, they should be encouraged. They should be not just given a passing glance, but be specifically written into the lawbooks, have company policies at work changed, hospital rules updated. Basically, all manner of rules and regulations that have any type of reference to marriage, based on the old ignorant standards, should be updated to reflect the more open ways. We have just been too closed-minded, and now is a good opportunity to make those changes.

I think we should support gay marriages, as well as some other related changes. Why limit ourselves to just changing what genders are allowed to wed each other? Why limit ourselves to just 2 participants? Hell, if I’m a Vegan because I love animals, why should I have to prejudice myself against Lassie? People that want to see gay marriages allowed say they want it because the people love each other and they want to spend their lives together. That’s fine. If I really love some of my cousins and want to spend the rest of my life with them, why can’t I legally marry them? How come I have to limit myself to just one person – why can’t I have 3 or 4 wives and 3 or 4 husbands? There are some people who can’t ever seem to keep their mates, but they are really attached to their goats and sheep – why can’t there be a legal marriage there too?

Please tell me why it’s OK to allow gay marriages (legally), but multiple marriages or animal unions are not allowed. I don’t get it. That’s not fair! It’s not OK to prevent two men or two women from marrying each other, but it is OK to not allow me to have 3 wives and 3 husbands? Why not? That’s not any more extreme than gay marriage is it?

You tell me if I’m off-base here…

No More Tipping

I’m tired of tipping.  Tipping is a waste of time and money, and a source of poor service. It’s a way for employers to screw over the staff, ensuring lower paychecks, and causes of rivalry among the workers who have to depend on them.

We should get rid of tipping as an expected part of the “customer experience” whether it involves dining, drinking, or tattooing.  Employees have a horrible cut in their regular pay rates, and they are expected to make up the difference (to at least minimum wage), and any extra $ is an added bonus.  How about utilizing the regular “minimum wage” which is standardized.  Don’t put the onus on the customer to help their server make a nice paycheck.

Most of the time, the waitstaff relys on providing good service to earn a good tip.  Actually, maybe not… I’d say they do their jobs in the normal proficient manner, knowing that if they do it badly they will receive little or no tips.  Not only does the “front line” of people have to put on a good show, but their actions play a big part on the tip sharing that everyone else gets.  In a restaurant, the cooks, bussers, hosts, etc, don’t get directly tipped, so they all take a cut from the waiters.  Get rid of that, and get everyone their own wage.

My mechanic doesn’t have a tip jar.  The helpdesk at work doesn’t have one.  My secretary doesn’t have one.  The cashier at the grocery store doesn’t have one.  The pump jockeys at the gas station don’t have one.  So what’s up with all the places that do?  I understand it’s just one more way to get another 0.001% cash flow for the business, but why make it sound like it’s a requirement for customers to throw more cash away?  Poor tippers get lousy service, get trash talked (behind their backs), while good tippers are just treated normal.

Screw that!  I’m tired of tipping.  I’m already paying for a service, I’m not gonna pay more to make you feel better.  I’m tired of hearing you bitch about me not putting a quarter in the tip jar, or only leaving 10% on the table after dinner.  If you don’t like not getting 25% tips, then GET A DIFFERENT JOB! I don’t get why people in the “personal service” industry (not that kind) get so bent out of shape about the subject.  If it bugs you that bad, then don’t do it!  The more I hear/see people complain about it, the more I want to put a tip jar on my desk….

Forced Medical Care – Riley Rogers

Riley Rogers is a 9-month old that has a kidney problem. Doctors said that emergency surgery is desperately needed, and he could die if he doesn’t get it soon. The mother disagreed, so she had to kidnap her own son in order to get him out of the hospital – she apparently wanted to use a method that was much less intrusive. So she sneaks her baby out of the hospital and an Amber Alert is sounded to track them down. They are found, and the mother is sent to jail. The baby is sent back to the hospital.

Well, as it turns out, the hospital was stretching the truth a bit. With his kidney problem, he could get very sick with no warning, so they wanted to perform surgery to try to fix the issue.  So what was this big huge surgery?  It was to insert a catheter to allow for dialysis. The mom wanted to try natural methods instead of him going under the knife – but both the hospital and state DSHS insisted that he be hospitalized.

What kind of BS is this? Isn’t it bad enough that the FCC does the parenting for us by sensoring the TV channels and radio airwaves; that the school board has taken on several daily meals, before and after school babysitting, sex education, driver’s education, etc; that the FDA allows drugs to smooth out obnoxious kids; etc, etc, etc. Now, here’s one more government entity working with a commercial giant (healthcare) to make sure the parents are taken out of the parenting roles. Many moons ago, it used to be that parents could take care of a sick kid, and consulted with the doctor when it got out of hand. Now, the state allows the hospital to initiate a state-wide emergency alert because a “mother’s instinct” had her dare to think for herself.

I’ve heard (seen, read, whatever) it suggested that there needs to be a lot more disclosure as to what’s really going on. The doctors, the hospital, the police, DSHS officials, and the family all need to work together to disclose a little more detail as to what’s happening with this. After an Amber Alert, after lots of media attention, after an arrest, after the mom spending 5 days in jail, after listing a $500k bond, after barring the mother from seeing her infant son after her release, and after the hospital/doctors saying that the health issue was really more of “it could happen sometime” instead of inferring the kid will die withing hours, there really needs to be a bit more information.  We’ve been told all these bad things, now how about a little more truth as to what’s really going on?  Quit leading us on and tell us already!

How is it that the state can forcibly remove the parent(s) from the role of deciding what happens to the children?  Yes, maybe the child could die as a result of the mother’s decision.  Yes, maybe nothing could have happened.  Yes, maybe the child would have been better off going with natural remedies.  No one really knows.  I think it’s just horrible that the parents’ jobs are being dictated to them by the state.  Get the <bleep> out of our lives and let us live our way.  The doctors don’t always know best…

For more information on Baby Riley, see his page here.  For more news on him, please see Komo TV’s site and the Seattle PI also has several pages on it.