apple juice

Thomas Friedman’s excellent new op-ed, Flush with Energy, contains this startling stat:

Denmark today gets nearly 20 percent of its electricity from wind. America? About 1 percent.

What are we doing here?

I don’t agree with everything position Obama takes, I think he could be even stronger in his plans to break our addiction to oil… but, it is pretty hard to tell Americans that “As president, I’m going to make gasoline $10 a gallon”.

Here’s Obama’s latest ad, “Hands”. I think it compares nicely with McCain’s plan for “more drilling”.

I sometimes joke that we live in the urban suburb. i love our neighborhood. we can walk to groceries, the bus, restaurants, our local bookstore, coffee shop and movie theatre.

However, it is not dense. Not dense in a chicago or new york way. but it’s city living as far as I’m concerned.

I’ve also been joking about writing a manifesto lately. things to guide us as “feature-creep” takes hold. things like, we will never buy a minivan. ride your bike as much as possible. the location of any future residence must be no more than:

• 2 blocks from a bus/train line (currently, 2)
• 4 blocks from the grocery store (currently, 6)
• 8 blocks from a library (16)
• 4 blocks from a couple different restaurants (5)
• 2 blocks from a coffee shop (5)

Just as it seems that it is becoming easier and easier to live “in the city”, with a family, and have these things that I consider important, it also seems that most of our friends have moved out to the suburbs.

In a future job, I would like to utilize my considerable SimCity skills. So I read a lot of articles on urban planning, transit, etc.

This one recently caught my attention, Trading Places:

This is the generation that grew up watching “Seinfeld,” “Friends,” and “Sex and the City,” mostly from the comfort of suburban sofas. We have gone from a sitcom world defined by “Leave It to Beaver” and “Father Knows Best” to one that offers a whole range of urban experiences and enticements. I do not claim that a handful of TV shows has somehow produced a new urbanist generation, but it is striking how pervasive the pro-city sensibility is within this generation, particularly among its elite. In recent years, teaching undergraduates at the University of Richmond, the majority of them from affluent suburban backgrounds, I made a point of asking where they would prefer to live in 15 years–in a suburb or in a neighborhood close to the center of the city. Few ever voted for suburban life.

So, I don’t know. How about it, friends? Those of you who grew up in the suburbs, flirted with the city and headed back? How about those who’ve made the jump one way or the other and are not going back?

Sonja and I often discuss where we might live next, and the discussion generally comes down to:

“You can’t have a family in that place…”

“They do it in Chicago and New York.”

So, hence the manifesto. How do you want to live? How do you match your lifestyle with your living space.

as long as doug brought up flying cars, i thought we should follow down that theme for a little while… in your best avery brooks voice, where are the flying cars? it is the year 2000 (and eight), i was promised flying cars!

well, maybe in october?, according to autobloggreen

friends who live in the mpls, or those who secretly desire to live here, I just found a new blog. well, new to me.

this is why i love minneapolis

weird to read a local blog though. besides mainstream media type blogs, i guess i don’t have any in reader. must… have… more…

also, to the twitter-haters, it’s starting to grow on me…. a little…

now, I am an obama supporter, and i believe that given our choices, obama is the better direction for the country. but i have some criticisms.

in his new energy plan, released yesterday, there is only brief mention of actually getting at the root cause of our energy consumption:

Build More Livable and Sustainable Communities
Over the long term, we know the amount of fuel we we will use is directly related to our land use decisions and development patterns. For the last 100 years, our communities have been organized around the principle of cheap gasoline. Barack Obama believes that we must devote substantial resources to repairing our roads and bridges. He also believes that we must devote significantly more attention to investments that will make it easier for us to committed to reforming driving and public transit.

so that’s it? no plan to fund transit solutions? no plan for high-speed commuter and intercity rail? not one mention of trains or rail in the whole thing.

i say throw some support behind solutions that are going to get cars off the road. like flying cars. (thanks doug!)

here’s a little background on McCain’s campaign manager. This link, circa 2006, comes to us from the always excellent talking points memo.

John McCain has signed up GOP operative Terry Nelson as his campaign manager — yep, that would be the same Terry Nelson who produced the infamous, racially-charged “bimbo” ad attacking Dem Tennessee Senate candidate Harold Ford, Jr.

that ad makes me vomit a bit in the back of my throat every time I see it.

read more: McCain Hires Strategist Behind Harold Ford “Bimbo” Ad As Campaign Manager

this heads up from TPM comes as they recount the last week of gutterball from McCain

good article examining why mccain has taken the low road. too bad obama is a bit hamstrung on fighting dirty since he has championed a “new kind of politics”.