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| Debt"Blessed are the young for they shall inherit the national debt." -Herbert Hoover
The USA will be $10.1 trillion in debt by the time the new president enters in January 2008. That is 70% of the GDP!!!!!!!!
On a side note, I am bummed that the Twins didn't make the baseball playoffs, but the Dodgers have advanced to the National League Championship Series. They haven't won a pennant since 1988. Go Dodgers!!!
Jacob | | |
| Think about it!"All of us, if we are reasonably comfortable, healthy and safe, owe immense debts to the past. There is no way, of course, to repay the past. We can only repay those debts by making gifts to the future." -Jane Jacobs | | |
| The Car of the FutureToday, I went to the Alternative Car Expo in Santa Monica. I went specifically to see a transit symposium, but was treated to see many manufactures' latest hybrid, cng, electric, and hydrogen vehicles. From all this I have come to the conclusion that the automobile of the future will be electric. For decades this was the consensus, but recently it appears to not be as sexy as other technologies, talk is now about hydrogen or hybrids (part electric). Almost all new technology seems to be converting some fuel source into electricity to power the electric motor - hydrogen does this - signaling to me a march in the direction of electric vehicles.
This should not be a surprise to any of us. Trains here in the US have been diesel electric for 50 years or so converting diesel into electricity by way of diesel generators. Until we are able to develop an electric vehicle that can recharge in less than five minutes and can store enough power for three to four hundred miles at a stretch we can use hybrid or hydrogen technology. The needed technological advances are almost here as can be evidenced by the models represented at the Alternative Car Expo.
On another note, I am excited that the LA Dodgers clinched a play-off spot yesterday and the Minnesota Twins have greatly improved their possibilities of playing in October by sweeping the Chicago White Soxs. Go Twins! I am routing for a Twins/Dodgers World Series. Not likely though.
Jacob | | |
| Fragility of LifeI don't know how many of you saw the recent killings that took place in Morelia, Michoacan, Mexico. On Mexico's Independence Day, September 16th, grenades thrown by what were believed to be members of organized crime landed in the celebratory crowd killing seven and wounding 100. The crowd had gathered in the vegetated "Plaza de Armas" alongside the beautiful baroque cathedral to yell the traditional shout of independence, "Viva Mexico!", that accompanies traditional Mexican Independence Day celebrations. I was in this very spot about two months ago spending hours watching the multitudes pass by and admiring the beauty of the cathedral in its nocturnal luminance. I had watched children play under the vigilant eyes of chatting adults. I listened to Bach thundered out of the Cathedral’s famous organ pipes. But as fate would have it. I was not there on September 16th, but in mid-July.
In September 2004 I was in Patong on Phuket Island in Thailand enjoying some relaxation. We, my colleagues on the trip and I, had just completed several days of networking for my university’s chapter of Engineers for a Sustainable World in Chiang Mai and Bangkok. It was in Patong where I first saw and swam in the Indian Ocean. Precisely three and a half months later I recognized this small tourist town on CNN absolutely destroyed by the large day-after-Christmas tsunami.
It is moments like these that startle one into realizing just how fragile life is. Though we like to think that we are in control of our destiny so much of tomorrow is out of our control, so much is left to chance. I will just continue counting my blessings as my life hangs in a balance I don't completely understand.
Jacob
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| Where are we going in this country?Yesterday, I saw six Bentleys. So, I saw six people who have achieved the American Dream, right?
I am living in an apartment in a neighborhood where 1/6 of an acre will grab nearly $1,000,000 and the little 1930’s bungalow is the free gift that comes with the purchase (the house is bulldozed immediately; nobody spends a million dollars for a 1,500 square foot bungalow).
The “Subway to the Sea” is still being talked about in West LA, under LA’s densest transit corridor. The discussion began in 1925.
Today, I rode my bike in a 20 mile loop going through neighborhoods with majorities of the following ethnicities: Hispanic, Korean, Ethiopian, Persian, Caucasian, and African-American. I ate lunch in a Thai restaurant which the family had opened in 1978. A geriatric Laotian served me and in the process invited me to Laos as a native for a visit. Many Hispanics were enjoying the ethnic cuisine. Most of the neighboring signs were all in Korean. One group I didn’t see in this setting, other than myself of course, was Caucasians.
What am I getting at? Well, is the ideal of the American Dream good for the country? Why have we, Americans, turned housing from being just that into a highly speculative market where we place our savings? How can a public works project that was first seen as needed in 1925 and that is still considered as being needed not yet be built? Why are our ethnicities so divided and does this create animosities towards different ethnic groups based on lack of understanding?
As I wrap my mind around these issues, what do you think?
Jacob
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