Good for Obama to be taking a proactive step towards urban life.

The Post-Petrol smart money will inevitably be on cities, as automobile transportation becomes unsustainable for many.

Many American cities are ripe for re-vitalization, and will hopefully be re-zoned to allow shorter commutes to work. America is still much too sparsely populated to fully duplicate the Western European mixed-zoning success, but there is much we can do.

There is a limit to exurban expansion, and those who disdain ordinary working stiffs and brown people will find it much more difficult and much more expensive to stay in their insular, hermetic little bubbles. As it should be. I'll shed no tears for them.

Oh, by the way... LaurelXXX, you remind me of a grown woman I used to work with when I lived on Long Island- a 30-something who lived her entire life on LI, and never ONCE set foot in the Five Boroughs. She, and a surprisingly large number of LI'ers like her, were in mortal fear for their lives at the thought of ever doing so.

How very sad.

Dude-

The Smart Cars was developed to fill a niche occupied by urbananites in mass-transit-challenged areas who need a small easy-to-park, economical car for short local trips. While you can take one on a long road trip, for some folks, that's really not what they are best suited for.

Besides, if you don't like Smarts, nobody is making you buy or drive one.

Other than that, what's your point?

The Difference

Maybe the difference between what Alito said and Sotomayor's perceived "empathy" is that no one actually believed Alito meant it...

Maybe the difference between GWB's acknowledgement of Clarence Thomas's "empathy" and Sotomayor critics frothing about the same is that no one actually believed that GWB knew the meaning of the word.

The housing collapse came about because we want more than we can afford.

Do tell?

You figured that out all by yourself, did you?

OK, Some Modern Manufacturing facts for the layperson:

Robots (my favorite topic)

Industrial robots look like a disembodied arm- not like Gigantor. They are nothing more than big, expensive, high-tech power tools, and when you buy one from Robots-R-Us, they don't even come with a HAND! That's right...NO attachments. Buying a just a robot is like buying a Cusinart without a bowl or any blades.

Skilled craftsmen are still needed to design, build, install, and maintain the "hands" and accessories that make robots useful (generically called end-effectors). They can be as simple as a gripper for picking things up, or as complicated as an automated spot-welding gun.

Robots also need lots of TLC and resularly scheduled maintenance- again, by humans.

The promise of Robots has also been terribly over-sold. The Germans (famous for over-complicating EVERYTHING) learned that the hard way. Buying and living with Robots is a very expensive proposition, and should be done only when necessary. I've seen countless robot installations that could have easily been replaced by simpler and less expensive automation. In short, a Robot is just a programmable, flexible motion platform, capable of doing a number of different tasks. You still have to make the tooling and program them. Whatever artificial "intelligence" existing in modern industrial robots is still extremely rudimentary.

Ever since Og chipped the first wheel out of living rock, people have been looking for ways to do things easier. Most have been net-useful- some have not. One must simply use the right tool for the right job, whatever that tool may be.

Automation: Once upon a time, futurists envisioned "Lights Out" manufacturing- whereby a truck would drop off raw materials once a week, and with the push of a button, a whole passel of machines would automatically, and without any human intervention, magically pop out skids of finished goods.

Certainly, it is possible, but not at all practical from an economic standpoint, except in the rarest of circumstances. Modern manufacturing plants still employ lots of people who can, and will continue to do, many tasks more economically than machines.

The decision to use any Automation technology should be (but is not always)an economic one.

There is a rich middle ground between floor-sweepers and rocket scientists. This is, simply, new and improved skilled labor. Once we had electricians, millwrights, and pipefitters who had plenty to do in their respective specialties. Now, we need technicians with broader and deeper skills who can maintain highly complex automation systems. The supply of such people is deeply lacking.

Parents want their kids to be doctors and lawyers and make lots of money. They don't want them to go to a Community College to learn industrial trades and then work in a factory, in spite of the fact that factory maintenance work is a whole lot cleaner, and more skill-intensive than ever. It even pays a decent wage in most places (proportional to one's skill level.) Other countries have amazing 100% government-funded trade schools that teach this stuff to a level and quality that far exceeds anything in the USA. It is only a matter of time before immigrants come in on preferred visas and eat our lunch. It needen't happen.

There is a critical need for skilled labor in this country. Besides the high-tech stuff, we still need machinists and tool and die makers to make molds and custom machine parts. (most of the few that are left are nearing retirement.) It takes a long committment of time and effort to be a good T&D maker.

Indeed, the most important component of a strong industrial infrastructure is the aggregate body of skill and knowledge possessed by PEOPLE, and is essential for our financial well-being and national security.

I have lived and breathed this stuff, professionally, for over 25 years as an engineer who has worked cheek-by-jowl with skilled workers and other engineers. I'd be happy to discuss this further with anyone who is interested.