Obama to McCain: Screw Your X-Prize for Car Batteries!

I knew there was something amiss about McCain's $300 million free-market incentive to the individual (or monolithic corporation) who could invent a better electric car battery. Yes, such an achievement deserves reward. But I imagine many engineers and scientists already want to do this, and for nobler reasons. Dean Kamen could make tons of money cranking out cheap gee-whiz gadgets; instead, he's invented a device to bring cheap drinking water to impoverished nations.

That Wired comment thread brings up an excellent point vis a vis commercialization of necessary technologies. One commenter urged Kamen to turn his machine over to "greedy capitalists" to drive its production costs down to the $1,000-$2,000 target range needed to make Kamen's Slingshot viable for worldwide distribution. Another reader astutely noted that this is exactly what Kamen attempted with the Segway, an expensive toy whose real purpose was to drive down the costs of parts needed to make the iBot, Kamen's wheelchair that traverses stairs and puts disabled people at the same height as the abled. Markets aren't omnipotent; they're often short-sighted and blind to our higher motives.

Barack Obama, to his immense credit, recognizes this, and has called McCain out:

When John F. Kennedy decided that we were going to put a man on the moon, he didn't put a bounty out for some rocket scientist to win -- he put the full resources of the United States government behind the project and called on the ingenuity and innovation of the American people.

Other Gristmill readers take Obama to tack, however, for not going further than the traditional, free-market-oriented approaches. Still, after a horrid week in which Obama backtracked on both NAFTA and FISA, this was nice to see.

McCain Back-Tracks His Party on The "Personal Virtue" of Energy Efficiency

This is laughable:

"Energy efficiency is no longer just a moral luxury or a personal virtue," he told a crowd gathered at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History in California on Tuesday morning, echoing language from his June 17 energy speech. "A smarter use of energy is part of a critical national effort to regain control of our own energy future."

It makes you wonder what ne'er-do-wells have been running around the country decrying energy efficiency as simply a matter of "personal virtue."

Oh, yes. That's right. Thanks, Google!

The fact is, conservation never was a matter of "personal virtue." While Republicans have been crafting plans to save the incandescent light bulb from extinction, we've brought our planet perilously closer to collapse. How bad is it? Well...so bad that even the Republican candidate for President can no longer deny the gravity of the problem.

Why Bikers Flout The Rules

A recent Colorado Springs Gazette article about the competing needs of drivers and cyclists drew a flurry of irate responses from both sides. The chief complaint from drivers: those goddamn cyclists are always violating the rules of the road, and should get fat tickets just like us.

Four thoughts:

(1) Cyclists sometimes violate the rules because they can. Drivers do this, too: they ignore "no right on red"s, cut through corner paved lots, etc. It's human nature to cheat when you're convinced its consequence-free. So climb down off of your high horses, thanks so much.

(2) You're several tons larger than us. Your violations of the rules can kill us. Our violations of the rules can kill us.

(3) It's sometimes safer for cyclists to violate the rules. This is especially true at stops on streets with no marked bike lane. If a cyclist has a trail of cars behind her, she'll see if she can get a head start on them so she can get clearly out in view of the car(s) to her side.

(4) We weave back and forth between sidewalk and road (one of the way drivers say that cyclists violate the rules) because streets with no marked bike lane and minimal shoulder are fucking scary. Stopping at a light with a line of 2+ ton vehicles idling their engines is fucking scary. Trust me: no cyclist enjoys riding on the sidewalk. Sidewalks are for pedestrians. Most cyclists will only hop onto a sidewalk as a last resort.

Bottom line for cyclists: yes, we ought to follow the rules of the road just as drivers (often) do. We can cause grave injury or even death if our recklessness causes drivers to swerve into other traffic. But until our cities are better retro-fitted to accommodate two-wheeled commuting, we're going to bend the rules where our safety's concerned.

Bottom line for drivers: if you want cyclists out of your hair (and off of sidewalks!), campaign for better bike lanes and trails, and better demarcation of city cycling arterials. Work with us, not against us. The more we're in our own lanes, the faster you can get to your destination - and the safer it is for us.