What you said, brother.

No matter what kind of automobile technology one comes up with, the very serious problem of urban planning isn't even being mentioned. People just rely far too much on automobiles.

I've been horrified at the sprawling development I've seen in my area (Eastern TN) as former cow-pastures have been gobbled up and carved into 2+ acre subdivisions sporting big ugly McMansions.

We purposely chose to live close to the city center so that we could walk when we're able, and drive minimally when we had to. When we were house-hunting, the agent naturally assumed that we would be interested in the monstrosities on the fringes. Not a chance. As it turned out, we found a very nice house near downtown with all the privacy and convenience we could want. It's 50 years old and has a few aches and pains, but those are easily managed with a modicum of handy skills, which I am fortunate to possess in abundance.

With energy supplies becoming more scarce and costly, the smart money will inevitably be on cities, and not exurbs, in the future. It's a real bummer to have to heat and cool a house that is 4x bigger than what meets the needs of the average family, to say nothing of having to jump into your car and drive 5 miles just to get a quart of milk or a newspaper.

On a different note, it's no secret that the more "conservative" elements of our society fear cities- preferring the perceived safety of gated (or not) exurban communities, where they can be "Rugged Individualists" and not have to share living space with the swarthy hoards.

I should stay more on-topic here...

Besides the problems mentioned in the article, hydrogen for automobiles has several other problems-

1. Low energy density. Hydrogen, per mole, has limited available energy. Put another way, you need lots of hydrogen molecules on-board for any kind of useable range. You can accomplish this by carrying highly compressed hydrogen gas, resulting in yet another energy loss due to the energy required to compress it.

2. Being such a small molecule, hydrogen leaks are very difficult to prevent or contain.

3. While some catalyst research shows promise for developing better on-board reformers (allowing, for example, ethanol or natural gas to be used as an on-board fuel), any technology that strips hydrogen from hydrocarbons results in CO2 as a by-product. At that point, the advantages of Hydrogen as a "clean fuel" are diminished.

4. Hydrogen has a tendency to diffuse through the crystalline matrices of many metals, causing them to become embrittled.

At this point in time, the challenges of using elemental hydrogen for automobile fuel are formidable, and not competitive with existing technologies.

"Religion, not "religiosity," please

Let me be the first church-going Democrat to point out to you that you should most emphatically not use the term "religiosity" when you mean "religiousness" or "religion" or "faith." "Religiosity" is false religion, religion as show. It may well describe the political evangelical movement, but it has nothing whatever to do with religious belief."

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That's right, it doesn't. Which is precisely why the term was used. I find that the truly religious people of faith have little in common with those who religiosity, and would likely be offended if tarred with the same bruch as they.

I just loved a comment I saw on Salon recently. I'd give proper credit for it, but I forgot who wrote it.

Anyway, it went something like this:

OK, so- two rocketships are being built- one by a group of the worlds leading aerospace engineers and scientists, and one by a couple of backyard mechanics who thinks that the first group got their gravity calculations wrong.

Which one would you want to ride on?

Please, oh PLEASE devote more Salon coverage to the massive PR machine that does the Power Elite's business.

Here are my thoughts in a nutshell:

The super-wealthy and international business interests like things the way they are. NO REFORM.

The same people own vast interest in ALL media forms. He who owns the microphones owns the message.

The same people have plenty of money and will see to it that no reform happens, any way they can. This is their war.

The same people are fundamentally business people- business people do marketing, and the GOP and their apparatchiks do it better than anyone else.

The basic principle of marketing is to use every possible psychological dirty trick (psy-ops) to mainline their message directly into the lizard brains of the targeted audience. It is a dishonest, manipulative, repellent and extremely effective enterprise. It is not a profession for people who believe in our "better angels" or who live their progressive values- if they want to be able to sleep at night, that is.

Proof that marketing works are the vast legions of ignorant Americans who have eaten themselves stupid while becoming enslaved by debt from buying shit they don't need. Ask them what happened and they won't be able to tell you. Marketing works just as well with ideas. I'll leave it to others to provide examples, but you get my drift.

Joan, please do some stories on the role of Marketing. Unfortunately, I fear that our collective concience will be our undoing.

Thank you.