How to improve a fuel economy

A petroleum economy rapidly nearing cataplexy, the United States was last week the scene of a terrible scam. The government found a use for all those black people: Tell them that everyone along the gulf coast has to drive a hundred miles north.

At $4/gallon.

And maybe drive back (You'll have to rent a space to stay while you mop out the new swimming pool where your basement, heater, water heater, winter clothes, tools, packed-up memorobilia used to be. Now all that stuff is a blob. It would have taken about three days to pack it all up and ship it to your brother's house in New York for a few weeks. And it took weeks to arrive.) if the evacuation order is lifted. Can you stay in the city overnight? Luckily, everyone in Louisiana has one of those swamp boats, so you can still commute.

Guess 1 million trucks averaging 20 mpg. That's 5,000,000 gallons, about $20,000,000. And that's 5,000,000 gallons off the top of our national reserve. And back south makes 10,000,000 gallons.

Clinton would have had airlifts assembling DURING the storm.

But seriously, the Hurricanes

I was in New Orleans once, and it was around 2pm on a Tuesday. I was, oddly, the only one walking around without my very own hurricane. Everyone around me was steeped in the local lore, everybody knows the berms are there to keep reality out.

And we're going to rebuild it on its foundation. Under sea level. Because George Bush is in charge and nothing matters. Decisions are being made by political appointees with less success in their backgrounds than even the failure W.

Old-time religion, modernity, and sea level

Wow, can you imagine what it would have been like a hundred years ago, before doppler radar, satellite tracking and a National Hurricane Center? If a category 4 hurricane would have hit New Orleans, at the mouth of the Mississippi River?

For some reason, it would have been about the same, only with less damage, because George Bush is in charge and he is an asshole and his followers are unprepared, ill-thought out idiots.