More Jeep Darwinism

Another Jeep, done in by Darwin.


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Konichiwa, Chevy!

Check out this gem (Jalopnik via Dublin Saab). It's a photo of a Toyota racing trailer being pulled by... a Chevrolet.

Ethanol Vs. Beer

One of the market distortions that is being caused by the government mandate for ethanol in transportation fuel is the rising cost of all kinds of food, including one of my favorites: beer.

According to the WSJ in a fascinating article from October 5th, 2007, small beer brewers are getting squeezed by dramatically higher prices of barley and hops.

Consumers could pay 50 cents to $1 per six pack more in the coming months for many small-batch "craft beers," as brewers pass on rising hops and barley costs from an unpalatable brew of poor harvests, the weak dollar and farmers' shift to more profitable crops. Other makers of craft beers, the fastest-growing segment of the U.S. brewing industry, say they may eat the higher ingredient costs, which will pare their profits.

...

Craft beer makers have faced escalating costs over the past year. Prices for malting barley, which accounts for a beer's color and sweetness, have jumped as farmers increasingly shifted to planting corn, which has been bringing higher prices because of high demand from makers of biofuels, like ethanol. The weak dollar also has made it more expensive for U.S. brewers to buy commodities from Europe.

The price of malting barley has increased by a whopping 75% in the last several months, from around $4/bushel to about $7/bushel. As a result, the price of small-batch beer is expected to increase, and some small beer makers are actually in danger of folding.

Wouldn't it be better to allow importation of Brazilian sugar beet based ethanol, tariff free, and leave more of our agricultural capacity for the tasty stuff?

Addicted.

I'm addicted to this free "tower defense" type game. It's really good.

http://onslaught.playr.co.uk/

Video: Ouch

Horrific drag racing crash. Driver survived with broken bones.

Unusual Car Sighting: Figaro

Went to Costco to grab some stuff, came out and saw this car parked nearby. It is a Nissan Figaro, a very small retro convertible with an interesting retractable roof. There is a nice Wikipedia article on the Figaro here.

Changes In The (Autoblogging) Landscape

When I started doing this, there were a few intrepid auto bloggers, pounding away in obscurity.

Then AOL bought Autoblog, and made it into a press release firehose. Jalopnik tries hard to keep up, but does it with more flair, OfficeSpace style. Eric of AngryEngineer was seduced by the dark side ("Jedi mind tricks don't work on me, only money") and joined Autoblog, wrote some kickass how-to articles, then disappeared.

Joe over at MyFordDreams, apparently worn down by his beloved Ford's inability to gain traction, slowed down to a trickle and then stopped. Now Carpundit has thrown in the keyboard, with the mysterious sign off "I am done with this blog. Blogging is over for me; three years was enough. Bye.". Automuse, perhaps the only female autoblogger, is very slow, but might still be going.

On the bright side, we now have Mark Tapscott, who took over the Carnival of Cars duties, and who actually gets on TV every now and then. Keep it up, Mark! And Pete De Lorenzo of AutoExtremist still throws it down weekly, pulling no punches.

Blogging is actually a lot of work, if you want to say something you think is your own, and don't want to sound stupid--although I can't claim to avoid that consistently. It's easy to repackage a news story from the Detroit News or a press release from Isuzu, harder to come up with a coherent commentary on what it means.

Do you have an opinion? Why don't you try your hand? We need more real bloggers, guys who sit in their basements in furry slippers at 2:00am trying to shout some common sense at the people in the private jets.