It would be funny if it didn't kill people.

CNN has a story about the junta of Myanmar who, for reasons known only to them, are doing their best to kill more people after the cyclone devastation. First there is this:

Authorities in cyclone-ravaged Myanmar have seized United Nations aid intended for victims of the disaster, prompting the organization to halt future relief flights, a U.N. World Food Program official said.

Not even Michael Brown actively kept relief supplies from those in need. Moreover, the US is trying to help, though the junta is jumpy about letting us in. Perhaps if we wanted to roll a couple divisions in there would be something to worry about, but our military is practically reduced to touch and go's along with airdrops:

The United States is proposing that C-130s fly into the Myanmar carrying U.N. supplies. The planes would drop supplies off and then turn around and leave. But they would conduct as many flights as possible.

The United States is also proposing that Navy helicopters already in Thailand and on board U.N. Navy ships in the region fly supplies to remote areas. The helicopters would conduct low-level flights and air drop the supplies but not touch the ground.

Even if you allow that the military rulers have something to worry about from foreign influence, you would expect the Myanmar government to be puling out all the internal stops, working night and day to rectify the situation and increase the flow of aid. You would be wrong:

To complicate matters, Myanmar's embassy in Bangkok, Thailand -- where aid groups have been waiting for days for entry permission -- was closed on Friday for a holiday.

Complete and utter incompetence. And the good people of Myanmar are paying for it.

NAIAS Four Months Later

Cutting edge news, only on Kiss Blog. Where else will you get a recap of the NAIAS in April? To add some spice to this well chewed cud, we'll discuss if any of my favorites have managed to sustain interest. Here we go:

The Honda CRZ concept:

There is significant momentum behind this one, and Car and Driver just named it one of 24 cars to wait for, though it has only been confirmed for the Japanese domestic market. This revitalized CRX would be music to my ears.

The Cadillac CTS coupe:

This particular concept does have legs; this is essentially the production version.

The Cadillac Evoq:

I believe this is a strong hint at an upcoming small SUV for Cadillac, either in Europe or the US, or both.

Audi R8 V12 TDI:


This one's not happening; a V8 diesel is on the way instead. To me, that's an incredibly dumb move. Who wouldn't want a car with an engine that is essentially the Le Mans winning Audi diesel V12? The bragging rights that would come with such a vehicle seem enormous to me, and likely enough to part many of the hyper-rich from their money. Then again, I'd never be able to afford one, so what do I know?

In retrospect, this show was actually quite important for the many concepts that will make it into production relatively unscathed. Tune in again next April for another hard hitting round-up of the hottest auto news out of NAIAS.

Atonement

This must be one of the worst movies ever. Not in the typical fashion of a weak Nicolas Cage effort or the train wreck of The Matrix 2 and 3. The problem with Atonement is that it makes you care and then rips your heart out with the emotional equivalent of a dull spoon.

Warning, I spoil as much as possible below.

Here's the basic premise of the movie from my point of view:

1. Boy and girl with significant back story and conflicting social status fall in love, all very touching.

2. Stupid boy and girl's stupid young sister together do stupid things to ruin everyone's life.

3. Everyone you care about dies.

First of all, if I want heart wrenching stories of loved ones lost, I can read the newspaper. This movie had not one shred of uplifting sentiment. Nothing achieved, nothing accomplished, nothing renewed. I might as well go watch pigs being slaughtered for all the emotional uplift.

More importantly, the movie's plot turns on a number of really dull points. The mixing up of letters by the boy is second rate stuff, and the truly appalling investigation, though inspired by the believably ruthless young sister, would never pass even in pre-war Britain. If a movie wants to treat it's audience to such punishment as this one does, it had better do it smartly.

As much as I complain though, I wouldn't do it if the movie weren't so good on many levels. The death of the leads is entirely believable, and the unwavering determination of the young sister to live in fantasy even to her old age is painfully understandable and deplorable. But really, without anything positive to say at all, what was the point of such great work?

Goodbye to Dubai

It must be nice for Dubai not to have anything better to do, but as they say, "idle hands are the devil's workshop." I think I'll be avoiding the emirate for the foreseeable future.

(via Sullivan)

Your Zombie Guide

Inspired by Andrew Sullivan's rant on a topic way outside his expertise (much like Tom Friedman's rants on automobiles, a story for another time), I decided to put together my own uninformed guide to Zombies in the cinematic world.  

Shaun of the Dead (2004):  Quite clearly a spoof of classic zombie movies, but it nails the zombies dead on.  They sort of roam around and get at you by sheer determination and numbers.  And because you have to brain them or remove their head to stop their advances.  Sullivan would love these I'm sure, and the dry British humor (er, humour) should tickle his Thatcherite senses.  

Serenity (2005):  Zombies in space, really.  (I can't take credit for this categorization, but I certainly can steal it.)  The zombies are a result of government experimentation, natch, and have the "increased cardiovascular skills" that Sullivan decries.  They are smart.  I think they like to eat people.  But, they die like everyone else.

I Am Legend (2007):  The one that started this mess has zombies with more cardiovascular skills than many pro-football players.  They, also, were the result of scientific experimentation and die like normal humans, only louder.  It would have been so much better for them to have something interesting and new about them, but aside from their ability to jump out of dark corners, the zombies were an uninteresting hybrid of previous reanimated peoples.  The book upon which the movie was based is apparently chock full of new ideas, but alas, I must concur with other reviewers that this movie is a hatchet job in the vein of I Robot and that all such zombie innovation was lost.

This is why...

...The Shawshank Redemption should never be screened in prisons.

Hybrids revisited

Back in the foggy depths of history I posted on the personal economic merit of hybrid vehicles.  With gas prices running at full tilt towards oblivion, lets have another look shall we?

In November 2005 I said that, ignoring tax credits and battery replacement costs, gas would need to be somewhere between $2.17  and $3.53 to recoup the initial costs of buying a hybrid Civic over a traditional Civic.  On Honda's website a nice tool is now available to compare competing cars, including Honda vs. Honda.  The Hybrid is shown to cost $4840 and $3090 more than the LX and EX Civic sedans, respectively, when comparably equipped.  Mileage is 40/45 for the hybrid and 25/36 for the LX and EX.  Using the same argument as before, gas would have to cost $3.49 and $2.23 for the Hybrid to make financial sense against the LX and EX, respectively.  

Since I'm paying well over $3.00 per gallon, the hybrid, as before, is not an unreasonable choice.  However, it seems (according to the Honda website) the hybrid depreciates faster and has somewhat higher maintenance costs, which further hurts the financial strength of the gas-electric car.  

Thus, overall not much has changed in two years.  A hybrid's additional cost is small but not trivial, and the cost may be worth it to obtain the peace of mind that comes with knowing you are supporting crazed oil barons 28% less when your drive.

Ever wonder just how GM's lineup of LS motors is organized...?

Yeah, me neither. But, it's still interesting to find out.

The Internets at their best

I recently stumbled across a fantastic website by one Don P. Mitchell. In it there is material on the Soviet exploration of Venus, Nicola Tesla, and other sciencey topics. The Venus material is especially interesting, as Mitchell has posted many pictures from the Soviet Venus missions that have been updated, starting from the original files, with new imaging techniques. This is exactly what the internet is meant for, a forum for interesting (if eccentric) people to post stuff that can't be found anywhere else.

What a travesty!

Shatner isn't in the latest Star Trek, while Leonard Nimoy is? This must herald the end of the world, and I'm sure if we look in his newly unearthed book we'll see that Nostradamus saw this coming.

Safety safety safety

I recently stumbled across a website that amalgamates all the auto crash test data, along with weight and safety features of the car, to give an overall safety rating. The percentage of total crashes that each specific type of crash makes up (e.g. frontal, side, rollover) is used to weight the crash test results. The website is from Informed for Life.

Overall, I like the idea and most of the execution of the website. It is hard to figure out what all the crash tests mean and what their relative importance is, and combining them all together is an important public service. Nonetheless, I have a few issues with the site. First, since they assign an average score to any category without data, some safe cars are brought down and some unsafe cars are brought up. This can give an unrealistic rating for a car, which is evident from comparison between cars that share significant parts of their design. Second, the crash tests are given uncritical trust in rating the safety. Perhaps this is the only realistic way to go about it, but I've noticed strange discrepancies in crash tests that may be worth taking into account. For instance, the NHTSA side impact tests seem overly sensitive when giving out five stars. I've noticed some cars go from a five star rating to a four star rating with the addition of side airbags. Thus, I think the IIHS side tests are much more important in determining side impact protection. Finally third, the rhetoric on the site is overly preachy and condescending. As rational as it sounds, it is not the whole truth that "...the purpose of our vehicle is to move us from point A to B, as safely as possible, and to avoid unnecessary risk-taking." If this were the case, Ferrari, Lamborghini, Aston Martin and the rest wouldn't (or shouldn't) exist. Perhaps it's all a matter of what "...unnecessary risk-taking..." entails, and perhaps these criteria are the ones we should usually consider and give most weight to. However, not everything in life should be a dry servitude to the safest path, and there are mixtures of enjoyment and safety in all things. Not driving at all would probably be the safest bet in any event, which would make this site useless.

I'll end on a positive note though: the site is important and I hope it stays active. With a few tweaks here and there it can become an invaluable resource, one that I wouldn't hesitate to recommend to anyone.

Summer doldrums

It's been a slow summer here at Kiss Blog. What with an upsurge in my work and the general hectic travel schedule that comes with the warm months, there's been little time to post on all things intriguing. Not that I haven't been paying attention: Libby's pardon, more and more and more dead in Iraq, terror in Great Britain and McCain running low on reserves have all gotten my attention. Though given these as postable topics, perhaps it has been better to leave the blog alone.

"down to two"

Andrew Sullivan's feelings on the Republican candidates, as of last night's debate, closely mirror my own. I can't stomach most of the candidates other than McCain, though Romney's polished look and clear business acumen are appealing, because of their embrace of torture and inability to squarely address Iraq and say something useful. I'm starting to feel that if anyone other than McCain wins the republican spot, and most definitely if Giuliani does, that I'll be voting for a democrat. That would be a first for this down-home, red-state raised farm boy, but today's GOP deserves it.

The Bourne Ultimatum

My favorite action hero, Jason Bourne, is back at it, and I stumbled across some live action shots of the filming (via Autoblog). The shots are very cool, and I'm expecting good things from the movie, especially the car chases (as Autoblog concurs). As a friend pointed out though, Bourne always gets away alive and well from the pursuits, but what about the "extras" accidentally caught up in the chase? In the Bourne Supremacy, there must have been fifty to a hundred maimed or killed bystanders as a result of the final automotive showdown, judging by the wrecks that occur. I guess I can only hope no double-super-secret CIA assassins ever get chased around my town.

Infants (might) go to heaven

As explained by Ross Douthat (filling in for Andrew over at The Daily Dish), the Catholic Church is moving away from its teaching on infants being in Limbo (literally) in the afterlife. Previously the thought was that being unbaptized, even if an infant, meant there was no way to enter heaven. This and with hell not being suitable for those who die as infants led to the conjecturing of another place somewhere in between. In contrast, the current Catholic theological state of the art (as I understand it) is that God's grace can likely overcome the infant's unbaptized nature, but we cannot know for sure where anyone (infant or otherwise) is after they die. I find this whole discussion extremely interesting, and in large part I welcome the new teachings. It is true we cannot know for sure where anyone goes after their death, but being a Protestant I differ (from what I understand) with Catholics on the reason. It is only because we cannot know each others' hearts, not because our destination is up in the air. We can know our own heart, and God promises: "That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." (Rom. 10:9 NIV)

Microcars

I like that GM is getting around to building small cars for the US market. I also like that I can do my best to vote out the two ugly ones. Here is the website with details of what I'm talking about; follow the "Vote for Your Minicar" links to vote for the Beat. In this design I see more than a little of the Chevrolet Rally Concept that was touring the auto shows not too long ago, which is a good thing.

Sales Volume Fun

There are a few articles (Autoblog) tooling around the information superhighway about automotive sales volumes for 2006, broken into individual models. I've always thought it was strange to pick out certain models like that since many companies (that is, the domestics) sell mechanically similar cars under different names (for example the Chevrolet Malibu and Pontiac G6). Therefore, I've compiled a list of compact, midsize and large car sales volumes from some of the major manufacturers. I've left out any overt luxury cars, since that's a different story from the mainstream offerings. The data was gathered from the Automotive Information Center for sedans, coupes and wagons. Here you go:

• Toyota
• small (Yaris, Corrolla (incl Matrix), xA, xB, tC) 630730
• midsize (Camry, Prius) 555416
• large (Avalon) 88938
  

• Honda
  
• small (Fit, Civic, Insight) 345294
• midsize (Accord) 354441
• large 0
  

• GM
  
• small (Aveo, Cobalt, Ion, Vibe) 416956
• midsize (Malibu, G6, Aura) 341243
• large (Impala, Grand Prix, Monte Carlo, LaCrosse) 503687
  

• Ford
  
• small (Focus) 177006
• midsize (Fusion, Milan, Taurus, Mustang) 519688
• large (Five Hundred, Crown Victoria, Grand Marquis, Montego) 224214
  

In many cases these categories involve one platform for many cars, such as GM's midsize entries, though others clearly combine disparate designs (e.g. Ford, with the Fusion, Taurus and Mustang in the midsize category). However, I've included all the cars sold in the size class to even out the companies' marketing strategies. To that end, I think it's interesting to see GM selling almost as many midsize cars as Honda by using three closely related models. (We'll also see how the Aura does as it gets a full year of sales in 2007, likely adding more to GM's total here.) Moreover, GM clearly owns the large car market with the W-body platform cars (i.e. the ones listed). Some may call these midsize, but they are routinely compared with large cars (Car and Driver). They certainly are a step up in size, if not in price. On the other hand, Toyota clearly wins in the small car category and follows a multi-model strategy similar to GM.

NAIAS

For my annual post on the North American International Auto Show, I've snapped a few photos of my favorite (and not-so-favorite) automobiles. They're included below, along with snappy commentary in (mostly) grammatically correct sentence structures. Enjoy!

First up is my favorite car of the show, the Chevrolet Volt. I'm a nerd, so the advanced drivetrain is right up my alley. Also, I'm impatient, so the ready to be mass-produced quality is music to my ears. This is very similar to the request I made when reports of this car first surfaced a couple months ago. I hope they make it soon.

I was also impressed by the car below, the Mazda Ryuga. The organic flowing shape is modern and yet conveys a classic car look in the fenders. And dig the texturing on the sides. I love it.

Next up is the Acura sports car below, essentially the replacement for the NSX. As Car and Driver have pointed out, a shift has been made to a front engine, GT style people mover (the NSX being mid-engined). Though I like the looks of this concept, nothing is a done deal in that super competitive class, and we'll have to wait to see how this pans out for Acura.


Finally, I have to comment on a car many are hailing as one of the most important cars at the show and a huge positive for GM, the new Chevrolet Malibu. The looks have been roundly praised, with many saying it looks even better in person. I'm here to tell you it doesn't, and I wasn't impressed at all. Maybe all the hype got me too excited, but I thought it was dull looking, especially the somehow Passat-esque rear end treatment. I'll reserve my final judgment until I see them on the road however.

Resurrecting the electric car

In another wave of General Motor's blitzkrieg on the environmental side of the automotive business, a plug-in hybrid is apparently set for debut at the NAIAS. There's no word yet on which brand it will wear, nor what fuel type it will use. I'm with Autoblog on this one though: make it small and fuel efficient to the point of absurdity. Demonstrate it is cost effective for the consumer (lower cost per mile than comparable non-plug-in cars), give it acceptable performance (8 or 9 sec to 60 mph should do the trick) and make the vehicle fully operational even without access to an outlet (easier said than done). With those attributes, they won't be able to make them fast enough, and the rumored sequel "I Know who Killed the Electric Car" won't ever see the light of day.

Quote for the day

"Americans will always do the right thing, after they have exhausted all the alternatives."

-Winston Churchill

(via Sullivan)

Thinking about it, that's not so terrible an insult.