A hybrid car with a new twist.

Was reading an article on the new hybrid electric/gas automobiles, and noticed that Dodge has come up with something quite interesting. It's new hybrid Ram truck doubles as a mobile generator, and is able to supply enough power for a house, campsite, or whatever. That's a nice twist. Somebody did some really creative thinking there. As someone who spends a lot of time out in the woods and on the road, I can think of a lot of uses for that. I'm sure you can as well. But mostly I just admire the genuine 21st century technology. Like I keep saying, things are getting better in a lot of ways.

Hey, here's an idea. Imagine that while you drive your car it generates and stores electricity. Then you come home, and plug it into your house. Better not tell the electric companies though, they'll come up with some way to ban that.

And it could work the other way too. Put solar panels on your roof and use that power to charge your automobile. Well, that's already here. The folks at solarwarrior.com have been doing that for a while. But their power goes into the electric grid during the day, and then charges their electric cars at night. But the next step could eliminate the need for the grid entirely.

Anyway, it looks like hybrid vehicles are going to be the next big thing in automobiles. Pretty much all of the manufacturers are coming out with them now. The Dodge truck I mentioned is coming out this year. All electric would be better, but that will come too.






Others' predictions for 2004.

I always like to predict the future, and am fascinated by articles that attempt to do so. I'll be gathering links to some of these for 2004, so that a year from now I can go back and see what's what, and what wasn't.

Here's a list from BBC News.


Here's Business Week's 2004 Forecasts.


There's another set of predictions from BW. In their "Movable Feast" column, Thane Peterson reviews his predictions for 2003, and makes some for 2004. Curiously it's mostly cultural changes, not business ones, that he discusses. Although he does briefly mention the economy.


I don't see what's "naive" about facing economic realities. And I also don't see what "Buy American" means anymore. Most of Wal-Mart's stuff isn't made in America. If you buy a Chrysler automobile, you're buying German, not American. If you go see "Lord of the Rings" you're buying New Zealand. If you buy a Harry Potter book, you're buying Scotland. You can't hide a trillion dollar debt behind a flag.

But that isn't a new story. Check out the lyrics to Bob Dylan's Union Sundown, written twenty years ago, in which he outlines how the lack of homegrown products affects things.








Spain and Morocco plan tunnel under the Mediterranean.

Guardian article. Continuing the spread of tunnels and bridges connecting various parts of the world, Spain and Morocco announced a plan to construct a tunnel under the Mediterranean.


This development hasn't been getting much notice since it's been happening gradually. But slowly the world is being connected together. Tunnels and bridges are also being built between Scandinavia and the European mainland, the Japanese islands and many other places.

The Spanish-Moroccan link is especially important since it would link not just the two countries, but effectively all of Africa and Europe.

The implications for national sovereignty, the environment, travel and the tourist industry, public health and other areas are quite significant. It's likely that by the end of the century, if not by mid-century, people will be able to drive from anywhere in the world to anywhere else.

The people constructing these deserve a lot of respect. It is probably the most difficult and challenging of all engineering tasks. Not to mention extremely dangerous. Much more so than space for instance, which gets a lot more attention.






Using globalization to achieve global democracy.

Writing in the Guardian, George Monbiot suggests using the power of globalization itself to deal with the problems it creates. We can seize the day, he suggests.


He's probably too idealistic and radical for most, but he's got a lot of good ideas here. What he suggests is all very workable.






Devolution and regional government around the world.

Devolution, for Americans who haven't yet heard of it, is the idea of returning powers to local regions, and giving them prime responsibility for managing their internal affairs. In the UK, it's the process by which Wales and Scotland have gotten their own parliaments as a step towards complete independence. The northern areas of Great Britain are also getting their own assemblies.

While most attention is on the ever-growing European Union, there is this countervailing trend also taking place. It's getting bigger and smaller at the same time. That may seem to be paradoxical, but actually it's two sides of the same coin.

The Guardian offers a special survey on devolution and regional government around the world.


Also see their special section on local government in the UK. This article on the new spirit in northern England is also fascinating.


While the US wants to believe superpowers and empires are the way to go, the rest of the world is moving toward more local democracy. But I think that in the US as well, for the first time in generations, power is beginning to flow from the federal government to the states. On a number of issues the states are taking the lead: health care, prosecution corporate crime, and more.

And governors are now becoming more powerful than senators. Consider that Carter, Reagan, Clinton and Bush the Second were all former governors who had never held a federal position. Their power came from the states.






More futile efforts to block the future.

The NY Times reports that Vietnam is now requiring permission for new web sites, at least for "businesses and organizations", however that's defined. That's a first, I think. At least, I haven't heard of any other governments doing this, certainly not so openly and directly. The US government requires internet radio sites to get permission from the government and pay fees in order to exercise their civil rights, which is essentially the same thing, but of course, when Americans do it it's called "business", not censorship.


Anyway, it amazes me that governments continue to think that they can do this. China's attempt to block Google only lasted a few weeks, and so on. But it's a frightening trend.

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