A friend just emailed me this link. MSN Autos has an article showing that the highest fuel efficiency models in 1992 were more efficient than 2007’s most efficient (non-hybrid) models.

I wrote the following in response:

On its face, this looks really awful, and I do agree that cars could be a lot more fuel efficient if cars companies wanted to make them that way and if people wanted to buy them that way.

But realistically, those high-efficiency cars from 1992? In general, they’re lawn mowers. They struggle going up hills. It’s no wonder no one wants to drive one. The fuel efficient cars from 2007? They’re real cars. The Yaris is totally suitable, and the Mini is downright sporty and fun.

Now, I’ll be the first one to agree with someone who says that gas is underpriced in this country, who says that we have an overwhelming bigger-is-better mentality that’s often not a good thing, that we are over-consumers and not concerned enough about conservation.

But, I don’t think that means everyone has to drive a small car. If you need a station wagon or an SUV or a pickup truck, that’s OK. And it certainly doesn’t mean that you have to drive a car that can’t make it up a hill.

What I really want is for the cost-to-benefit comparison to be more transparent, so that it becomes apparent to someone who’s driving a gigantic SUV what the tradeoffs between fuel efficiency and utility really are. Unfortunately, our current energy prices don’t take a lot of things into the accounting.

The First Lady cracked some jokes about her husband, family, and other politicians at Saturday night’s dinner with the White House press corps, according to this article in the New York Times. One of the jokes cast her as a “desperate housewife”, but she hasn’t actually seen the show yet:

In Mrs. Bush’s case, playing off “Desperate Housewives” was a natural, even though Ms. Whitson said that Mrs. Bush had never actually seen the racy ABC hit show. Ms. Whitson said the first lady had heard about the characters and plot from the Bush twins, Jenna and Barbara, who are fans, and was planning to watch the entire first season on a DVD she has at home.

Wha? According to my Netflix queue, Season 1 of Desperate Housewives is due to be released on DVD in September of 2005. Does Laura Bush get an advance copy?

Or maybe she TiVo’d them and recorded them to DVD herself. Can’t you just see her pushing the buttons? Or maybe Jenna downloaded the torrents and burned them. Maybe it’s a shrewd and subtle dig at the FCC in protest of the broadcast flag. Laura Bush, crusading for electronic freedom from the repression of media conglomerates. No wonder she got that citation from the ALA.

It’s nice that major leaders in various sects of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam can come together over something, but I just wish it wasn’t to oppose a gay pride festival in Jerusalem.

The part of this article that made me laugh, however, comes about 2/3 of the way through. Apparently the whole furor was started by some evangelical rabble-rouser at a church in California that meets in a hotel. He was tipped off to the event by “a congregation member who had told Mr. Giovinetti that he was gay for many years and still monitored gay Web sites [emphasis mine]”. Ah yes, those ex-gays. Even though they tend to be hateful, preachy people, you almost have to feel sorry for this guy, because “still monitored gay Web sites” is thinly veiled code for “jerks off to gay porn and looks for hookups on gay.com”. He just tattles on the gay agenda to his minister later.

I am slightly heartened by the fact that, in a cursory google search to identify a few hateful, preachy ex-gay organizations to link to as examples in that last paragraph, that I actually had to dig. The top links were actually all from places like the apparently quite positive and constructive ExGayWatch.com. It’s heartening to see that confused people trying to find their way will see this kind of thing first.

I took a stupid career quiz a few days ago, and it got me thinking.

Stupid magazine quizzes are essentially simple versions of “scientific” psychological tests like the Myers-Briggs, and they’re not really very differnt from horoscopes, or handwriting analysis, or psychic readings. Except the people who write magazine quizzes are way less talented than the psychics.

The “answers” to stupid magazine quizzes, just like horoscopes, are broad and vague and at least part of them applies to almost anyone. There’s not really any suprising information there; nothing you didn’t already really know. But the writers of the magazine quiz are at a distinct advantage over the writer of a horoscope: they actually get you to tell them things about you! You answer a bunch of questions and then they regurgitate it back to you.

Psychics, on the other hand, are much more talented. I’m not talking about the people telling us that the world will end in fire and brimstone when the aliens arrive on a Tuesday in 2011. I’m talking about the real working-class of the psychic world, the people who do personal readings, or someone like John Edward. They take a look at you, gathering all kinds of subtle clues about you, ask a few questions and make some really remarkable connections, and hit you spot on. Sure, they might make some broad and vague and all-encompassing statements too, but they carefully gauge how you react and home in on the correct statements, or those that affect you the most. They don’t need no stinkin’ multiple choice questions.

(I don’t actually think psychics have supernatural or paranormal abilities per se, although I wouldn’t be surprised if many of them do this in a subconscious manner and are really surprisingly good at it in ways that are certainly extraordinary or preternatural. And I don’t think that makes them irrelevant or useless at all. But that’s material for a future rumination.)