Colorado Accountability Project
A telling juxtaposition in two articles, does Toyota's CEO thinks the push to drive EV's is a bit hasty?, and something for fun!
A telling juxtaposition …
An interesting juxtaposition that illustrates the priorities of our state's policymakers ...
The two articles below appeared in Complete Colorado on the same day. I thought that they made for an interesting juxtaposition.
I am not alleging that it is the intent of lawmakers in this state to disarm the population, to increase crime, or to disarm us and then leave us at the mercy of criminals.
I think, however, that these two together speak to misguided priorities among the folks running the state.
On the one hand, they're going to make us "safer" by cracking down on guns. On the other, their desire to implement criminal justice "reform" leads to policy that makes us less safe.
Wouldn't it be better to recognize the nature of crime: that there is some element of crime that is in the criminal him- or her-self? Maybe it's extreme lack of impulse/anger control. Maybe it's a mental disease or defect.
Whatever the cause, they carry it around with them, and focusing solely on external factors is taking away from the law-abiding and putting fewer restrictions on those that would not be law-abiding.
Not a good combination in my view.
** One last quick note on the gentleman who was released on parole and then got in a hit and run accident. At the bottom of the article, a statement from Polis' office regarding the release of this gentleman is given. Quoting from the article:
"This individual met the requirements under the statute to participate in the Juveniles and Young Adults Convicted as Adults Program (also known as JYACAP), and he successfully completed that program. In accordance with the statute, his case was reviewed and he was granted parole. The JYACAP program was first created in Senate Bill 16-180 with bipartisan support. After the Supreme Court ruling in Miller v. Alabama, the State of Colorado created a statutory framework for how individuals sentenced to life as juveniles become eligible for parole, including successfully completing the requirements set out in statute in C.R.S § 17-34-102."
It is an important bit of context to note that the Supreme Court did not (as is implied in the statement) require that juveniles sentenced to life in prison be released. It merely required that there be no mandatory life sentences for juvenile murderers.
https://www.axios.com/local/denver/2023/01/03/colorado-gun-laws-club-q-state-democrats
https://www.cbsnews.com/colorado/news/murderer-released-prison-linked-deadly-hit-run-aurora/
Does Toyota’s CEO think a jump to EV’s (and nothing else) is a bit hasty?
Did you drive a steam-powered car to work today?
They had them. Before it was carpet cleaning, a Stanley Steamer was a steam powered car with (depending on model and etc.) a kerosene-fired boiler. See the screenshot for what I mean if you're curious.
I mention steam powered cars not because of their antique interest and not because it's a feasible technology for today. I mention them because I want you to try and put yourself back at the dawn of the automobile.
Gasoline and diesel now seem to be a foregone conclusion in terms of power, but you need to remember that at the dawn of the automobile, there were other ways of getting motive power and the question wasn't settled yet.
There was gasoline, there was steam, hell, there was even electric. We have gasoline and diesel now as a result of competition among ideas, aggregated preferences, and, let's admit it, likely some government intervention and money changing hands.
My point is, this was not a societal decision made entirely by fiat. It was not a decision based on wanting to appear virtuous amid screaming about global warming killing us all in the next 10 years. It was a choice built up over time.
Do we expect that a transition away from gasoline and diesel should be different? Some seem to think so. Some seem to think that we should put all our eggs, so to speak, in the "EV" basket.
I don't think this is wise, and apparently among auto makers some of the folks who agree are speaking up a little. To quote the article below (sorry, I wanted to give you the original one from the Wall Street Journal, but the WSJ one had a paywall and Yahoo did not):
"'Because the right answer is still unclear, we shouldn’t limit ourselves to just one option,' he [Toyota President Akio Toyoda] added."
Yes. Just like we shouldn't have dumped tax dollars into installing water towers all around the country to feed the water tanks of all the steam-powered cars that we were sure would take off, we shouldn't yet be dumping tons of money into EV's and EV infrastructure. At least not taxpayer money and at least not til we're more sure of the technology and whether it will prove best.
To mix in one last metaphor before ending the post, I was told once while house hunting that I shouldn't set the maximum price at my actual maximum price because there may be the perfect house priced at, say, $100,100 dollars that would be excluded from my search if I put in $100K (my max price).
We should be doing the same with EV's. They're a fine thing to look into and explore a little, but why limit ourselves when an equally workable, perhaps better, technology could be just outside our search window.
https://www.yahoo.com/now/toyota-president-says-silent-majority-142506751.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAMv4dQ45dOJhDgdyeR_naDj6BqIPUqOdgvK41adJ5bdErvRqt574H1S3M4wMOpvynm-XB05oichIZnn2NQXyDQ2i88nnH21J9ejzGd7mbreCw7L81yuMYWUNHgEuAMRu0k0rhp2KdvQJp7joUa_FQPDVA5AOB3saRElQdKM72hEz
An archaic meaning to the word “careening”
Last one of the day and you know what that means, something for fun, a curiosity, and not related to politics.
It's also the last one for a couple days because I'll be away from the computer tomorrow.
I recently finished the book "Ship of Death" about a ship, originally carrying idealistic settlers from Britain intent on beginning a colony off the coast of Africa, which inadvertently kicked off a yellow fever epidemic in the Caribbean and North America. Interesting book, it's linked first below (sorry, not an endorsement of yalebooks' site, I just couldn't find any links that weren't selling the thing and I went with a .edu site).
I thought I'd share with you a little nugget I learned while reading. Have you ever heard of "careening" a ship?
I hadn't prior to reading this book. Careening (or putting a ship hove down) was a way of doing repairs or maintenance on the hull of a ship without need of a dry dock.
Essentially, you hook ropes around mast, pull the ship over exposing half its hull, and tie the ropes off. This enables people to scrape barnacles, apply metal, etc. to half the hull. You could let the ship up, turn it 180 degrees and repeat. See the screengrab (from the Wikipedia article on careening linked second below) attached.
In the context of the Ship of Death book, they mentioned this practice being done in a particular harbor in the Caribbean. The harbor was well sheltered from the ocean and had a ring of high hills around it, making it easy to get ropes around the masts and pull the ship over.
If you're like me, you might wonder at the etymology. I found an article on it (linked third below) and took a screenshot of the relevant bit.
So, now we know.
Have a happy Friday!
https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300194524/ship-of-death/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Careening#:~:text=Careening%20(also%20known%20as%20%22heaving,cleaning%20or%20repairing%20the%20hull
https://www.etymonline.com/word/careen#:~:text=1590s%2C%20%22turn%20a%20ship%20on,%2C%22%20possibly%20from%20PIE%20root%20*