All City Swim, with nearly 2000 participants is being held at Fitchburg’s Seminole Pool later this week (Thursday to Saturday). This year’s event includes some interesting features:
Driving the U.S. – Gasoline Free
Brian Murphy writes:
BARRING A MAJOR METEOR STRIKE, by the time you read this, Australian Shaun Murphy will have completed his eight-month, 16,000-mile circumnavigation of the United States, completely gasoline-free. Murphy is trying to show the world that gasoline, that stuff we?ve loved, wasted and purchased so cheaply for 100 years, is not necessary. To do so, Murphy is crossing the country in a variety of vehicles powered by everything from soybean oil to electricity generated by the methane of cow dung.
Murphy?s rides have so far included just about the whole catalog of wheeled unconventionalism. Electricity?generated through what Murphy calls clean sources like hydro, solar and wind?powers the three-wheeled Corbin Sparrow, the TZero sports car, a converted Volkswagen Beetle, a converted Pontiac Fiero, a few battery-powered motorcycles and one solar-electric canoe (that?s right, a canoe). Biodiesel powers a VW Golf, a near-10-second quarter-mile dragster, two Hummers and the TV crew?s Ford F-650-based motor home. Ethanol produced from corn powers an airplane in which he flew. The ?Human-Powered Car,? meanwhile, has four seats with everyone cranking to make it go. That one didn?t cover much of the 16,000 miles.
Dark Age Ahead?
Jane Jacobs has published Dark Age Ahead (Random House, 2004), in which she targets “five crucial weaknnesses in the foundation of contemporary life in the West” — one of which is “dumbed down taxes.”
Author, activitist, social theorist and renowned urban planner, Jane Jacobs defined an increasingly influential way of looking at cities by opposing “slum” clearance and “suburban sprawl,” and advocating the “restoration” of urban centers. Still in print 40-plus years after publication, her classic The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961) revolutionized urban planning.
Jacob’s later works explored her fundament ideas for different perspectives: urban economics in The Economy of Cities (1969) and Cities and the Wealth of Nations (1984), and political philosophy in Systems of Survival (1992). More recently Ms. Jacobs argued that economic life obeys the same rules as those governing the systems in nature in The Nature of Economies (2000).
About her latest work, Publisher’s Weekly wrote “Witty, beautifully written–the culmination of Jacobs’ previous thinking, and a step forward that deftly invokes a broader philosophical, even metaphysical, context.” Via Taxprof.
Renewable Energy: “We’ve got sun”
T.R. Reid writes from Arizona:
“Some states have oil. Some have coal. Here in Arizona, we’ve got sun,” said Hansen, a vice president of Tucson Electric Power Co., as he squinted through heavy-duty sunglasses. “And now we’re using that resource to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels.”
On an utterly shadeless expanse of high desert plateau near the New Mexico border, Hansen manages America’s largest solar-powered electric generating station. It looks at first glance like a long, long row of windowpanes propped up to face the sun. In fact, each “window” is an array of photovoltaic cells that generate electric current when exposed to the light.
Global Demographic Surprises
FOUR SURPRISES IN GLOBAL DEMOGRAPHY by Nicholas Eberstad identifies some interesting global demographic trends:
- The rapid spread of sub-replacement fertility
- The emergence of unnatural gender imbalances among the very young
- Sustained increases in death rates
- American “demographic exceptionalism.”
Gratitude?
Gratitude Journals & Lowenstein’s Challenge:
How many times have
You heard someone say
If I had his money
I could do things my way
But little they know
That it’s so hard to find
One rich man in ten
With a satisfied mind
…
Money can’t buy back
Your youth when you’re old
Or a friend when you’re lonely
Or a love that’s grown cold
The wealthiest person
Is a pauper at times
Compared to the man
With a satisfied mind
Fascinating reading at Marginal Revolution….
More on Old Media Changes
The Chicago Sun-Times cut its single-copy circulation numbers by 23%, more than a month after disclosing that it had inflated figures according to this AP article. Times are changing. Advertisers should completely understand what they are getting for their money.
Grand Haven, Michigan offers Full-City WiFi!
Grand Haven, Mich., makes a splash with full-city Wi-Fi coverage: This seems like yet another city announcement, but it might be the first city with this scale of access that 100-percent live and commercially available
State Election Board Controversy – Lorge Candidacy
Tony Palmeri, a Green Party candidate for the 54th Assembly District writes about a recent State Elections Board meeting…
Wisconsin Economic Development
A recent Economist article on Wisconsin mentions one of the many challenges facing our state:
Without a smart urban centre of its own to attract young professionals, Wisconsin has seen an exodus of college graduates in the past two decades. It ranks 43rd among the 50 states in the share of college graduates in its workforce, says Terry Ludeman, a jobs expert.
Unfortunately, our entrenched politicians evidently cannot see the opportunities at hand. South Korea, recognizing the need for change after the 1997 Asian financial crisis, fully embraced the need for change and pushed true broadband (not the slow stuff we have) adoption to the extreme as John Borland and Michael Kanellos explain.