Down with Badge Engineering

Badge engineering is the practice of selling the same car with different badges (Chevy or Saturn or Pontiac or ...) under different names. For instance GM is about to launch the Chevy Traverse, a badge engineered Saturn Outlook. GM has four midsized sedans, Chevy Malibu, Buick Lacrosse, Pontiac G6 and Saturn Aura which compete with each other. Only Malibu is selling, the others are losing money. Toyota competes with a single model, Camry. Right now GM's problem is it has more good car names than it has good cars to give the names too.
Rather than selling four slight different cars, running four different ad campaigns, stocking four different sets of repair parts, and operating four different production lines, it is MUCH cheaper to build just one good car, build up it's reputation, get the price down thru economies of scale.
Car buyers aren't fooled. They know that look alike cars from the same company are actually the same car with a few trim changes.

Lithium Ion batteries or fuel cells for cars?

At the Geneva auto show, Bob Lutz, GM's new product guru, said lithium ion batteries might make a 300 mile range electric car possible. Lutz then said "If we get lithium ion to 300 miles, then you need to ask yourself, why do you need fuel cells?" Good point. The WSJ article did not talk about costs of lithium ion, service life, and the fire risk. There is video kicking around the internet showing a lithium ion powered laptop bursting into flames on a conference room table.
Toyota president Katsuaki Watenabi expressed concern about fuel cell costs, and the availably of hydrogen to fuel them. He said fuel cell cars are unlikely in the next ten years.
On the other hand Daimler AG's president Dieter Zetsche (Dr. Z) announced plans to product a fuel cell car in limited quantities by 2010. So not all hope for fuel cells is lost.

New CEO for General Motors?

GM has given Frederick "Fritz" Henderson the title of "President and Chief Operating Officer" with responsibility for GM's operations. The WSJ article doesn't define "operations" but one would it assume it means running the car factories and selling the cars produced therein. Rick Waggoner, the current boss at GM, would retain his job, title, salary, and retirement benefits and plans to work on "transformational issues" such as lobbying environmental regulations and new technology. Is this retirement in place? Making and selling cars is GM's real business. Everything else is a side issue.
George Fisher, GM's lead director said that the board viewed GM management as a triumvirate of Waggoner, Henderson, and Vice Chairman Bob Lutz, the new products man. Fisher may call it a triumvirate, but I'd call it a committee. Real companies are run by a single Chief Executive Officer, who can call all the shots without endless meetings to hash over policy. Is GM still a real company?
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Professional vagueness from Harvard Law

Wall St Journal gave Harvard Law School professor Lawrence Tribe a place on the editorial page to air his views on the Washington DC gun ban case (DC vs Heller). DC has a drastic gun ban law that prohibits all handguns except those owned before 1974, and requires all guns to be unloaded, taken apart and locked up at home. Heller, with some help from his friends, brought suit, claiming the DC law violated the right-to-bear-arms second amendment. Heller lost in the first trial, then won on appeal, and now DC is appealing to the Supreme Court.
Tribe, in a longish column manages to say the court should not rule in favor of second amendment and not rule against it either. This sort of flip flopping is what gave us the 19 year long Exxon Valdez case, discussed here. After throwing out some vagueness to confuse the reader, Tribe suggests the Supreme Court rule that citizens can keep long guns, but not hand guns.
Let's hope the Court is wiser than Tribe. Brushing aside all the legalisms about well regulated militia, federal bans on automatic weapons (Tommy guns), and assault weapons (whatever they might be) the core of the matter is simple. Many of us citizens want arms for personal protection, and we want handguns that fit in the cash drawer, in the bedside table, and in the glove compartment, loaded and ready to fire, just in case. And, a majority of ordinary citizens feel that the second amendment guarantees us that right.

State funded aid to Education Part 2.

Union Leader has unkind things to say about the latest "what-ever-it-is" from Concord. It might be a proposed bill, might be an advisory committee report, might be almost anything. According the the Union Leader, this new plan will take from the poor and give to the rich. Perhaps it is a follow on to this story from a few days ago.

Who do want answering the red phone at 3 AM?

Hillary has been running this ad, up here where the primary was nearly two months ago. Does it help her even in states yet to vote? When I see it, I keeping that if the red phone rang I'd prefer John McCain to pick it up. He is an experienced combat veteran, unlike either Hillary or Barack.

North Country broad band

Union leader has an article here. Reporter[s] have little grasp of the real situation. The population density is low up here. The TV cable companies demand 15 households per mile before they will string a cable. It takes 15 cable bill payers to pay for a mile of cable. Here in Franconia we only have cable right close in to the center of town (Bob's Mobil station) and in Mittersill where there are 200 ski chalets in a tight cluster around the Mittersill Inn. DSL only reaches out 18000 feet from the telephone central office. Anyone farther away is out of luck.
For TV we have satellite. Those of us enjoying the rural life, far out from town, can get TV from satellite, so the incentive to run cable out that far is pretty much gone.
For broadband, the only thing that makes sense is wireless. A single tower can serve everyone for a 5-10 mile radius. The cost of that single tower is way way less than stringing cable all over the same area. There is a trial wireless operation starting up on Burke Mountain, and that is the way to go, not pounding on Comcast and TimeWarner and Fairpoint to run more wire.
Broadband has the potential to bring companies into the North Country. A lot of people, stuck commuting on Rt128 would love to settle down in the North Country to enjoy the skiing, the rural lifestyle, the mountains and woods. Any company operating up here can attract a wonderful staff of people who like being in NH. Broadband is essential to any kind of business now a days. If we build it they will come.