Obama and Jane Jacobs

We have a President who has read and appreciates Jane Jacobs's Death and Life of American Cities, saying "it's a great book."  Check out the story and then watch Obama's discussion of regionalism here.

a life milestone

luckily, luckily web release

hello everyone: it is the middle of the summer and I am trying to shake off the summer humidity and doldroms to get some work done. For motivation, I am reliving some previous work accomplishments, one of which is now available on the web.

Released in print last year in the University of Virginia School of Architecture's publication lunch was a piece I wrote called: luckily, luckily - a measured exploratoin into globalization, shipping and the movement of goods. It's actually one of the things I've written that I'm most proud of. Certainly, there is much room for improvement but it's pretty decent.

DC United !

election day in NC !

it's election day here in North Carolina. When I first learned that NC had scheduled its primary for May 6 I thought to myself: "way to make yourselves irrelevant." I sure was wrong on that. The primary season has now lasted from prior to the beggining of the spring semester here at UNC - Chapel Hill until after its close.

Political geography is one of my favorite subjects and check out the Washington Post's surprisingly inane analysis of North Carolina's political geography. Thanks WaPo for pointing out where the colleges and military bases are in our state! I personally think the outer suburbs of Charlotte and Raleigh will be very important in today's race. Mark Johnson's analysis in the Charlotte Observer is much better - the sub-headline is: "Small cities, distant suburbs are road to victory."

If I have more time later today I will provide some relatively in-depth analysis of the "gas tax holiday" proposed by both Hillary Clinton and John McCain. I think it's an incredibly bad idea and one that would never be able to get enacted anyways. More important, in my estimation, is greater public understanding of what the federal gas tax is.

I cannot repeat it enough: the federal gas tax is 18.4 cents a gallon. The federal gas tax has been 18.4 cents a gallon since 1993 except for 1996 when it was temporarily lowered to 18.3 cents a gallon. Unlike other taxes, such as a sales tax, the federal gas tax is not a percentage tax. This means that back in 1998 when gas was say 95 cents a gallon the federal gax tax was 18.4 cents a gallon and now in 2008 with gas prices about $3.60 the federal gas tax is still 18.4 cents a gallon. The federal gas tax has absolutely nothing to do with the rise in gas prices over the past decade.

More later...

transit heroes - wedding edition

this couple from Washington, DC took the metro from their wedding ceremony to their wedding reception and it was enough for them to make the front page of the Washington Post website! Imagine if they had actually gotten married on the Metro to take their rightful place in the pantheon of true transit heroes!

Capricorn Voyager in Chevron's Ad

if you have been watching the new "Untapped Energy" advertisement from Chevron, the people that brought us Energyville, and thought that you would like more information on the vessel appearing in the ad - the Capricorn Voyager - then you have come to the right place.

The Chevron ad touts that its employees are "citizens of the world" and it appears that the Capricorn Voyager is similarily global. From a quick search it does appear that this is a Chevron oil tanker. It was made by Samsung, presumably in South Korea. It is flagged in Bahamas. The owner of the vessel is Clio Marine Inc., which according to Equasis is a Japanese company but according to the American Bureau of Shipping in May 2007 is Liberian.

The Capricorn Voyager is a fairly large but not enormous oil tanker. It clocks in at 58,442 gross tons. Overall, it seems to be a pretty normal and recently built oil tanker.