Providing well-to-wheel efficiencies is a great start, but ignores the energy of production of the vehicle itself.

The part that I find most disturbing is the battery pack. The gas powered analogous part is the gas tank. Gas tanks are shockingly easy to produce and don't need replacement after a few years. So, a more complete analysis would include the energy of manufacture plus the energy of maintenance.

I know, the math gets cumbersome - but is still grade school level.

Those battery packs are very suspect. I'd have converted a car to all electric already if I weren't faced with the specter of replacing the batteries in a few years. As it is, I'm watching for battery data from the already deployed prius fleet.

Glorifying the English people for embracing freedom is like praising president GW for his intellectual curiosity.

England has become a surveillance state where awesome numbers of cameras keep an eye on the population. Also check wikipedia for the "anti-social behavior act" - particularly the 2003 version. The English people have already surrendered freedoms that bush hasn't had the audacity to try snatching. It's like they're a test bed for governmental over reaching in the context of democracy.

Furthermore, I listened to obama talk. He said all the right things about illegal spying and FISA. He had my support and, yes, I wanted to learn more about the man. That's Obama's weakness. The man behind the voice is deeply flawed. He proved that his words don't mean a thing when he supported GW's imperial ambitions with regard to privacy, now legal spying, telecom immunity, and limits to the rule of law. His words didn't mean anything when he decried off shore drilling.

I fear that Garrison has been taken in by a carpet bagger in a shiny, but empty, suit.

You are completely correct. Both Obama and McCain voted exactly the same in supporting both the FISA bill and offshore drilling. The difference is that obama made rousing speeches against both before voting in support. How am I supposed to trust obama to keep his word on anything? Does he have a special signal that indicates he means it this time?

I was an obamatron 8 months back. Maybe I'll feel less remorseful in early Nov.

Regarding clinton, bush and 9/11...

bill clinton had specific plans in place to attack Afghanistan, but didn't do it because he didn't want to saddle an incoming president with a fresh shooting war. He did get bin laden kicked out of Sudan and did try to kill him with cruise missiles.

bush, despite warnings, did not follow up on clinton's plan until after 9/11.

Bin laden started his crap because he was peeved at U.S. actions during the gulf war under bush 1.

In the end, clinton's only fault lies in not killing bin laden. Bush 2's falt lies in not caring about it until after bin laden attacked again.

Almost, not quite.

I'm going to trust the guy that says he's going to punch me in the face and then does it.

I'm not going to trust the guy who says he's got my back and then kidney punches me from behind.

Furthermore, the guy claiming friendship hasn't really done anything to help me. He talks a lot about it, but hasn't delivered much. Except for that kidney punch.

In other words, an honest asshole trumps a lying asshole.

Can anyone recommend a decent economics blog with incisive reflections on globalization?

From the title, I thought HTWW was back on the beat so I gave it a try. Nope. Still a war room penumbra. Partisan blogs are common low value tripe these days. Nothing to see here, move along.

Good work Andrew! You called it in '05 and made a great post in '05. You really set the performance bar high for yourself back then.

As to the question, are they dumb? No. It is easy to conflate bankers and banks. The bankers are usually in the game to make themselves rich. They are not working for the best interests of the banks. They are in it for their own personal percentage of every deal. It doesn't matter if the deal is good or bad, just that the percentage ends up in the bakers' accounts.

So a bank fails. Big deal. Business shifts to another bank. The bankers shift with the accounts. Everyone keeps their prior year's bonus money. If lucky, get the tax payers to fund a bail out. Write yourself in for a percentage of that too. Rinse and repeat.

Based on the sheer number of people who suddenly embraced the enviro-look, I do believe that the bulk of organic foods purchasers were mere trend followers. It became another avenue of conspicuous consumption. Somehow, discussing a healthful diet morphed into bragging about how much you could afford to spend on food.

I think the end of the trend was walmart selling organic food. Suddenly the symbolism lost half its power.

As far as trends go, this one wasn't so bad. It didn't top up the land fills as much as the trend of swapping functional but unpopular stuff for earth toned stuff with green labels.

If you look, you might notice farmers markets cropping up like starbucks used to. I know a fair number of people who now talk about prowling farmer's markets whereas last year they proudly swung around whole foods reusable bags.

Your local market is probably just price matching.

In my area, prices are still low in the barrio. The scenesters don't go there.