Who killed and revived a worse electric car? GM

A question I pose to GM:

The EV1, your much heralded electric car got up to 100 miles per charge.

The future of GM electric cars, the Chevy Volt, will only get 40 miles per charge.  

Why does the future seem worse than the past?

Above is my question, below is my commentary.

Sure, the Volt seats 2 more people, but how often do 4 people really ride in a car together?

Here's a nice comparison of the two cars.

On another note, the Tesla, a much cooler car that is hopefully coming out in 2008 will get well over 200 miles per charge.  

Tesla Motors: American Inginuity.  Fuck you, General Motors.

From top the bottom on the pictures above: 

Tesla Roadster

Chevy Volt

GM EV1

Refunds are for dummies

If you got a refund this year from the IRS, you got conned by uncle sam.  Unfortunately, I got one too.  Mine is about $200, meaning that I let the IRS borrow $200 from me, interest free over the course of 2007.  At a rate of return of 5%, it cost me about $10.  Not too bad, but some people get refunds in the thousands of dollars, giving up hundreds to the IRS.  

What I will do next year: under-withold.  The goal is to owe the IRS a small amount, maybe $25.

Of course, its always hard to determine your exact tax liability, so I must issue a disclaimer that you may want to consult some idiot accountant, even though the math involved is so simple a 3rd grader could do it.  All it takes is a bit of research.  My accountant is a free program online.  That's another truth to taxes, the only thing worse than giving he IRS an interest free loan is actually paying someone to do your taxes.

Rejects from the SuperBowl

It is well known that those t-shirts and hats that players wear right after the SuperBowl were made in the days and weeks before the game.  

So what happens to the losers' shirts?  They go to Latin America.

Or on eBay!  

1984 Bill Set to Expire Saturday night

The big brother named Protect America Act will expire on Saturday. Congress adjourned before this law's extension was passed. The Protect America Act is what allowed AT&T to spy on your phone calls, internet browsing, and any other types of communications they were able to intercept.

Bush claims that Americans will die if this is not passed. What a load of bullshit. Unless Bush looks the other way while the terrorists attack to prove his point, we will not be any less safer without this law passed. Why should we give AT&T immunity for spying on us? They broke the law, even if the government asked them to, it doesn't matter. They should be sued, and are currently being sued by the ACLU and others.

McCain Flip Flops on Torture

One of the only principled stances that John McCain has ever taken is against legalized torture by the United States. He has repeatedly said that waterboarding is not legal and should not be used. Today, he changed his mind and voted against banning the practice.

A civilized country should never official condone torture. Torture is something used by tyrants. As McCain has pointed out previously, torture simply does not work. If someone has your testicles in a vice, you will say anything to get that vice removed, the truth may come out, but so could anything else.

Once you open pandora's box of torture, where do you go from there? If the guy won't crack under waterboarding, do you rape his wife and children in front of him? What if that doesn't work?

We as a society must draw a line in the sand. McCain had done this in the past but has proved himself to be quite a waffle on this issue. As I have said in the past, he is the most dangerous candidate out there.

Me and the Potomac Primary

For the first time I can remember, the presidential tickets are not set as of February 12.  For the past few months I had assumed that my vote in the primary would not matter.  My choice all along was to support Ron Paul and had I been in one of the earlier primaries I would have done so.

However, despite my voice and my money, Ron Paul's campaign never really took off and he recently said that he is going to pull back on his efforts now that McCain will be the republican nominee.

My second choice was Mitt Romney, but last week he dropped out.  

Huckabee is still fighting, but I could never vote for someone so stupid that he believes the world is 10,000 years old and that women came from a man's rib.

Thus, going into the Potomac Primary (MD, VA, DC vote on the same day), my goal was to prevent John McCain from being president.  

McCain is the worst possible choice for many reasons: he frequently tries to fight what he believes to be immoral activities, such as violent video games or Ultimate Fighting.  He wants us to be in Iraq for 100 or more years.  He would, without a doubt, continue on the failed policies of Bush.

So, my vote was cast as to who would have the best choice of beating McCain and that choice was Obama.  While I am not very comfortable with a lot of his stances, they are much better than McCain, and I also hope it sends a message to the republicans that if they select assholes like McCain instead of truly good people like Ron Paul to represent them in the presidential election, they will lose.

NADA 2008

I am at the National Automobile Dealers Association conference in San Francisco.  I arrived on Friday and have been helping my Dad out with some tasks.  He has over 35 people attending the conference from Russia.  I am providing them with logistical support.  Today I took several of them on a tour to places like Alcatraz and the Golden Gate park.  Some of them did not like our excursion because it was focused on history and they "just wanted to see the city", which was my original plan until they demanded a Russian Tour guide.

Tonight was interesting.  I went to the top floor of one of the nicest hotels in San Francisco and met the COO and a VP of a $20B company.  That is something I can say I have never done before.

Tomorrow I believe I will actually attend the NADA conference I have yet to step foot in the door.