Monthly Archives: June 2008

Energy, Security

Plug-in VW diesel-hybrid arriving in 2010

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Great news from Germany, Volkswagen has created a plug-in hybrid called the Twin-Drive that will soon be available:

A key difference between the VW approach and typical hybrids is that instead of the battery providing supplemental power to the combustion engine, the Twin-Drive will work the other way around. According to Winterkorn, “here the diesel or gasoline engine supplements the e-motor.”

Excellent. This is exactly what I want in a car. This is what most Americans could use right now to reduce emissions, reduce the dependence on foreign oil, and yet still maintain their quality of life. Hydrogen is a pipe dream compared to the here and now of biodiesel-hybrid.

Poetry, Security

Marvin Bell on Homeland Security

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The last time I met with Marvin Bell, he seemed worried.

This was a far cry from our first engagement, almost ten years prior, when I felt like I was the one who had to introduce him to the Internet because I was the one who had to explain the dynamic nature of HTML.

I was the one afraid since I was warned he would be unhappy with my rendition of his poetry online. I had prepared an image version of his poems just in case he did not accept the unpredictable flow of HTML in a browser window. Fortunately he was full of energy and very positive about the work I was doing. His eyes were bright and his smile broad as he looked at my monitor and said things like “this is really amazing, I am very happy”.

Fast forward and Marvin seemed very upset. He was sad, or perhaps even angry, about America and the war in Iraq. I suspect this will continue to haunt him in his work, as captured by The New Yorker last summer:

Two owls have perched at the property line,

and a scraping on the porch means the postman

is wiping his shoes before continuing

across the yards, three homes’ worth of catalogues

and ads, and the occasional letter, all cradled

in the crook of one elbow. I’ll be getting an offer

of money, a map to riches, a new future

that has come out of the blue. Today I finger

each envelope before opening, and I admit

I feel for wires and beads of plastic explosive

amid the saliva. The daily rags speak

of a dirty bomb. The government tells me live

in a wooden house with a hurricane lamp,

a gas mask, and flares, while it arms

an impervious underground temple from which

it can map the surface, choose a site

anywhere on the globe, and call down the rain.

Marvin does a fine job with this tone of despair, but I wonder if he could be persuaded to write a positive piece on security. He was asked to live in a wooden house? Somehow I doubt that. I would ask him directly, but I suspect he does not check his mail or answer the phone anymore.

Security

The Hunting of the Snark

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The AP reports that poetry has been referenced in the decision against Guantanamo:

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit cited the 1876 poem, “The Hunting of the Snark,” in ruling that the military improperly labeled a Chinese Muslim as an enemy combatant. The ruling was issued last week but an unclassified version of the opinion was released only Monday.

This part actually reminds me of Kafka’s book The Trial:

The three-member court, which was made up of two Republican judges and one Democrat, was particularly pointed in its criticism of the argument that evidence is reliable because it appears on multiple documents.

“The government insists that the statements made in the documents are reliable because the State and Defense Departments would not have put them in intelligence documents were that not the case,” the court wrote. “This comes perilously close to suggesting that whatever the government says must be treated as true.”

Kudos to the court for turning to poetry to help provide clarity in the debate over national security. The Hunting of the Snark is by Lewis Carroll. Here is “Fit the Eighth – The Vanishing“, which closes the poem on a sobering note:

They sought it with thimbles, they sought it with care;
They pursued it with forks and hope;
They threatened its life with a railway-share;
They charmed it with smiles and soap.

They shuddered to think that the chase might fail,
And the Beaver, excited at last,
Went bounding along on the tip of its tail,
For the daylight was nearly past.

“There is Thingumbob shouting!” the Bellman said,
“He is shouting like mad, only hark!
He is waving his hands, he is wagging his head,
He has certainly found a Snark!”

They gazed in delight, while the Butcher exclaimed
“He was always a desperate wag!”
They beheld him–their Baker–their hero unnamed–
On the top of a neighboring crag.

Erect and sublime, for one moment of time.
In the next, that wild figure they saw
(As if stung by a spasm) plunge into a chasm,
While they waited and listened in awe.

“It’s a Snark!” was the sound that first came to their ears,
And seemed almost too good to be true.
Then followed a torrent of laughter and cheers:
Then the ominous words “It’s a Boo-”

Then, silence. Some fancied they heard in the air
A weary and wandering sigh
Then sounded like “-jum!” but the others declare
It was only a breeze that went by.

They hunted till darkness came on, but they found
Not a button, or feather, or mark,
By which they could tell that they stood on the ground
Where the Baker had met with the Snark.

In the midst of the word he was trying to say,
In the midst of his laughter and glee,
He had softly and suddenly vanished away—
For the Snark *was* a Boojum, you see.

Apparently the Bush administration has been leading the country on a snark hunt. Amazing that judges have tried to call it out and put an end to the nonsense.

Energy, Sailing, Security

Algae and China’s Olympics

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The AP reports that competitors in Beijing may face environmental challenges:

To host the Olympic sailing events, the Chinese port city of Qingdao moved a massive boat yard, relocated industries and spent about $850 million on transport links, parks, pollution controls and coastal green belts.
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But with little more than a month to go until the Games, a different challenge is cropping up: A forest of blue-green algae is choking the coastal waters, suffocating beaches and lying in thick layers along sailing routes.

The Olympic committee should bar any country from applying to host the games if they can not achieve environmental guidelines such as air and water quality.

The New York Times had an interesting look at cause:

Water quality has been a concern for the Olympic sailing events, given that many coastal Chinese cities dump untreated sewage into the sea. At the same time, rivers and tributaries emptying into coastal waters are often contaminated with high levels of nitrates from agricultural and industrial runoff. These nitrates contribute to the red tides of algae that often bloom along sections of China’s coastline.

But officials in Qingdao this week said pollution and poor water quality did not have a “substantial link” to the current outbreak, according to Xinhua. Instead, scientists blamed the bloom on increased rainfall and warmer waters in the Yellow Sea. Algae blooms now affect more than 5,000 square miles of sea water, according to Xinhua.

Regardless of cause, the real question is impact. I guess the 10,000 people who are cleaning up all the algae could be tested for ill effects, as well as all the animals fed the stuff:

Photographs in the Chinese media showed rickety wooden boats overflowing with green mounds of algae collected from the sea. One photo showed a young boy crouched on a beach beside piles of the leafy glop as a dump truck carried off a large load of algae. State media reported that 100,000 tons of the algae had already been taken out of the water. Much of it was being transported to farms as feed for pigs and other animals, according to news reports.

Maybe the Chinese could convert the Algae into biodiesel? It is great the Olympics are forcing China to clean up, but the clean up should come long before the games so these risky and questionable quick-fix solutions would not be necessary.