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One sad but salient fact about America's current standing in the world is that lots of our old allies now dislike our country, and countries that used to mildly dislike us now openly hate us. Our next president had better be used to being hated and attacked and called names, and able to function competently in an international atmosphere of mistrust and suspicion. Hillary Clinton has been repeatedly attacked by right-wing nutjobs, left-wing wackos, and every single candidate for president in both parties, yet she keeps on keepin' on. Whether you love Hillary Clinton or hate her and call her names, you've got to admit that her ability to withstand hatred is a necessary quality for a post-Bush president, and that she deserves our respect (and possibly our votes) on that basis alone. But another necessary quality for cleaning up the G.W. Bush mess is managerial competence, and this is an area where Mitt Romney is the only shining star in the current constellation of candidates.

Remember how Romney turned around a hopelessly inept (and corrupt) 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics Committee? That was a stunning management feat. He didn't do badly as Massachusetts governor, either, or as the founder and managing partner of Bain Capital, where he ran (or hired people who ran) an impressive array of well-known companies.

Forget Romney's religion and political positions for a moment. Think of the president not only as commander in chief of the world's most potent military force, but also as CEO of our country's most important "company" -- one to which we pay large sums of money every year (in the form of taxes) and from which we expect high level of service in return. Romney is totally qualified to deliver good value for your tax dollars, and deserves your respect (and possibly your vote) for that reason alone.

Now back to Hillary Clinton. Use the search words I hate Hillary on Google and you get links to over 2.5 million pages. Some of them are as strident as Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad talking about the United States or Israel. Others sound more like North Korea's crackpot "dear leader" Kim Yong-il.

Wow.

We need a president who can stand up to people like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Kim Yong-il and G.W. Bush's good buddy and fellow torturer, Vladimir Putin.

Sen. McCain stood up to his N. Vietnamese captors, and deserves huge props for that (as well as extra "presidential qualification points" for being a veteran), but in recent years he's shown a tendency toward irrationally angry responses to personal attacks. Much as I respect McCain, I do not want a president who might suddenly nuke another country because its leader calls him some of the same nasty names our more disgusting "Republicans" use to describe Hillary Clinton. I also don't want a president who is (or whose core supporters are) comfortable using personal insults to describe a U.S. Senator and former first lady. People who would do that are likely to call Putin or Chinese premier Chang Chun-hsiung or someone else with a large nuclear arsenal a poo-poo head or some other insulting, childish nickname, thereby setting off a worldwide atomic war that would end civilization as we know it.

A hard choice...and some help making it

I am not overly impressed with this year's crop of presidential wannabes. Huckabee would be a cool choice for some sort of ceremonial entertainment post, since he's the best guitar player and singer of the bunch. Ron Paul is also suitable for a ceremonial post. If we had a cabinet-level Department of Doomsaying, he'd make a great head for it. But electing Ron Paul as president would be as stupid as hiring a strict vegetarian to run a meat-packing plant or a PETA leader to run a mink coat factory. Edwards is a lawyer who made a bunch of money on class-action suits and by taking 35% and 40% of poor people's "pain and suffering" judgements. We can get dozens just like him by looking through the Yellow Pages. Bill Richardson seems like a nice guy, but doesn't really stand out in a crowd. Rudy Giuliani would be a great head for the Department of Post-Distaster Speechifying but is otherwise problematical (corrupt friends, tendency to wear dresses, messed-up personal life, etc.), and as for the rest of the field.... if I can't remember their names, neither can most other Americans, so they don't stand a chance.

One cute thing I found online just a few moments ago (isn't the internet fun?) was a quiz that supposedly helps you find the candidate whose stated positions on high-profile issues most closely match your own. It showed that my best "match" on the Democratic side was Joe Biden, and that my best Republican match was John McCain. It also showed that, based purely on ideology, I should support Ron Paul over Mitt Romney, and Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton.

The thing is, as I age, I find myself increasingly likely to base my personal voting choices less on ideology than on demonstrated competence. Compromise may be a dirty word to many partisan purists, but it is at the heart of the American system of government. Our Declaration of Independence and Constituion were both compromises, the result of protracted negotiations between northerners and southerners, big-state people and small-state people, federalists and states-righters, and so on.

Remember the post-Katrina mess in New Orleans? I'm sure that even the most partisan supporters of both (Democratic) Louisiana (now former) governor Kathleen Blanco and (Republican) U.S. (soon to be former) president George W. Bush were sickened by how poorly these two elected offiicials handled hurricane relief efforts. I was disgusted by both of them, too, and I don't recall worrying about their positions on stem cell research or homosexual marriage while I watched the way-too-late evacuation of the New Orleans Superdome on TV.

We need a government that, more than anything else, is capable of handling disasters and even -- when possible -- preventing them.

This is why I make my voting choices the way I do, and why a general election choice between Hillary Clinton and Mitt Romney would be a hard one for me to make, while choosing either one of this pair over any of the other (current) potential nominees would not cause me to lose a minute's worth of sleep, even though I disagree with both of them on many hot-button political issues.

A modern electric-drive hybrid car consists of a series of discrete mechanical systems, The major ones are:

• Electric motors (ideally built into the wheel assemblies)
• Batteries (drive the motors; recharged either when the car is plugged in or from an onboard generator system)
• Onboard generator/battery charger
• Power source for generator (can be gasoline engine, fuel cell, diesel... whatever)
• Computer-based control system (to make everything work smoothly together; also powers lights, turn signals, wipers, and other accessories)
• Brakes (same as in today's cars)
• Steering (same as in today's cars)
• Suspension (same as in today's cars)
• Chassis (hopefully better than in today's cars)
• Body (hopefully better than in today's cars)
• Passenger & cargo accomodations (seats, trunk, etc.)
• Amenities (A/C & heat, music players, phones, navigation, etc.)

Electric motors, batteries, generators, and onboard power source designs are going to change rapidly over the next decade. But what does not need to change, within broad limits, is their form factors. Just as there are standard sizes for desktop and server computer sub-sytems like motherboards, RAM, power supplies, and hard drive enclosures, we could have standard-sized automotive sub-systems.

One size will not fit all. A large manufacturer such as Toyota or General Motors would probably have three or four basic chassis sizes they'd use for passenger cars and light trucks, with (ideally) the ability to swap out some components between adjacent chassis sizes. This would mean they could produce, for example, a high-performance version of a small car by equipping it with the "next size up" electric motors, and possibly a higher-powered charging system. Or they could produce an "ultra-economy" light truck for local use by equipping it with the minimum-power electric moters needed for operation at or below typical urban freeway speeds and -- if the vehicle was never going to do intercity travel -- leaving out the charging system and its power source entirely in exchange for more cargo capacity.

I have listed chassis and body as separate sub-systems. Why not have a tube-frame or other integrated chassis with lightweight, molded body panels? Once you start thinking in modular terms, this allows production of a two-seat model with a cargo bed (pickup truck), 4/5 seat version with trunk (sedan), and many variants between these two basic extremes, from hatchbacks to convertibles, possibly with the "convertibles" being models with extra-large pull-open tops or removable hard-top panels.

A car you can upgrade for years to come

The biggest benefit of a modular vehicle isn't the chance to buy it in a variety of body styles or with varying "mix and match" amenities, but in the fact that it could be upgraded when technology inevitably advanced.

New, better batteries come on the market? Replace your old ones. They'll fit!

Want more power? Buy new, "one size up" electric motors!

Upgrade to four-wheel drive? That should be easy; a matter of changing two wheels and connecting new cables to the battery system and plugging control wiring for the new pair of motors into the control system. (Plus, most likely, a little control system reprogramming or replacement of a ROM chip.)

Hydrogen-powered fuel cell powerplants come on the market? Buy one and bolt it in!

And so on.

Even a crash.... most of the systems would probably still be fine. Yes, replacing some or all of the chassis and body would be a major job, but if parts were priced correctly (and a strong, competitive aftermarket would spring up and hold parts prices down) it would still be less costly than buying a whole new vehicle.

Planned obsolescence won't necessarily go away

Right now I'm faced with a binary choice regarding my 1994 Jeep Cherokee:

• Keep it, perform minimal repairs until it totally dies (has 180,000+ miles; little things like wiper motors and air conditioning parts are failing regularly)
• Replace it with an equivalent new (or at least newer) vehicle

A third "sort of" alternative would be to have all likely-to-wear-out parts replaced at the same time, from light bulbs to brake hoses and linings and cylinders/calipers to drive belts and coolants hoses. I have actually done two rounds of 100% hose/belt replacement on my Jeep, which is probably why it has only had one breakdown, ever, that stranded me at the side of the road.

But there is no reliable way to upgrade my Jeep and turn it into a "newer model." If I had that alternative, say at a cost of ~$12,000 instead of the $25,000+ a new (and in my opinion inferior) equivalent enclosed Jeep sells for today, I would probably go for it. As it is, though, I can't justify the cost of a new Jeep or similar vehicle, and if I want a used one.... well, that's what I already have, and I see no point in buying another used Jeep Cherokee unless the one I have now has some sort of catastrophic (i.e. engine or transmission) failure.

If I had a modular vehicle, I'd be in the market for an upgrade about now. An Chrysler and their local dealer (or an independent "upgrade shop") would be getting a whole bunch of money from me. Not as much as they might get by selling me a while new vehicle, but a whole more than the $0.00 they're going to get under the current system.

But I don't have a fully-modular, upgradable passenger vehicle, and neither does anyone else in the United States. It's sad that our automotive industry hasn't started to think in terms of modular, upgradable cars and light trucks, but so it goes. Even worse, when an enlightened auto manufacturer does move to a sensible system such as the one I've imagined here, I suspect that it will be one based in China, India or Korea, not in the United States. :(

It all began when I entered a Prototype Newspaper of the Future contest, sponsored by the Southern Newspaper Publishers Association. (Grand prize: $2,000!) Okay, I haven't exactly won it yet, but my ideas are so cool and innovative that I am sure to win. I doubt that other entries will combine sex, computer-controlled newspaper delivery robots, drugs, and rock and roll. Why, I have so much confidence in my entry, fellow OJR readers, that I am daring you -- even double-daring you -- to come up with something better.

Idea #1: Sex! Also, cover the future, not just the past and present

Any idiot can write stories about events that have already happened, and even the dumbest, most makeup-wearing TV reporter can bring you "live, on the scene" coverage of events that are happening right now, but only visionaries and psychics can bring you news of events that haven't happened yet and that, indeed, may never happen at all.

(The contest ad said, "Think big. Think radical." So I am!)

Read the rest @ ojr.org.

BRADENTON, FLORIDA -- Government statistics show that 112 million Americans, or 46% of the population, have used illicit drugs (mostly marijuana) at some point in their lives, and that 28% of all Americans between the ages of 18 and 25 have used marijuana within the last year. Since one of the big reasons given for legalizing illicit immigrants is that we can't possibly arrest and deport 12 million people, and we have far more marijuana users than illegal immigrants, it's obviously more important for us to legalize marijuana use than to give amnesty to illegal immigrants.

Illegal immigrants fear new laws and enforcement efforts that will penalize employers for hiring them, thereby clamping down on their job opportunities. In our "zero tolerance" drug law environment, many employers already reject marijuana users. Pre-employment drug screening is common, while (effective) pre-employment identity verification is not, as witnessed by the number of illegal immigrants we see working in jobs ranging from agriculture to construction to auto repair.

A common argument in favor of a "path to legality" for illegal immigrants already in the U.S. is that, aside from the fact that they break the law by being here, most illegal immigrants hold jobs and are otherwise productive, valuable members of society.

You can say the same about marijuana users. The ones I know personally are productive members of society. And unlike illegal immigrants, they don't routinely use fake IDs or fraudulent Social Security numbers.

Don't forget: using false ID is a crime that virtually all illegal immigrant commit. And virtually all illegal immigrants who drive cars or trucks in the U.S. are either guilty of driving without a license or of obtaining a drivers license under false pretenses, both of which are crimes that routinely put bona fide Americans in jail.

As near as I can tell, marijuana users represent no more threat to society than illegal immigrants. We don't want either group to drive or operate dangerous machinery under the influence, but that's a separate law-enforcement issue.

One reason a (legal) immigrant neighbor from Mexico gives for not making it hard for illegal immigrants to get jobs here: "A lot of them will turn to crime to make money instead of working. They'll be robbing and stealing to support their families. 12 million people, that's a lot of potential criminals. We can't handle that many, no way. We don't have enough police or jails to deal with them."

You can say the same thing about marijuana users. Millions of otherwise law-abiding Americans have been turned into criminals by our drug laws. In many cases (including one in my own family), possesion of as little as four ounces of marijuana can brand a young man as a felon, which makes it hard for him to find a decent job and makes it impossible for him to get any kind of government-sponsored loans or aid to continue his education. My young relative works two low-wage jobs to get by, but many others in his situation have given up on bettering themselves through legitimate work and have turned to crime.

We don't want to make 12 million illegal immigrants into potential criminals. We shouldn't make even more millions of marijuana users into potential criminals, either. But we do.

Proponents of legislation to legalize illegal immigrants' presence in the U.S. don't like the word "amnesty" used to describe their efforts. They talk about how they will have application procedures and fees and some sort of screening process, including proof of employment, for all illegal immigrants who want to become legal.

Fine. Let's do the same for marijuana users. Give them a procedure to apply for legal status, including proof of gainful employment and an otherwise clean court record. And, to make this idea more politically palatable, let's not use the word "amnesty" to describe it.

Why law enforcers should back marijuana legalization

Most state and local law enforcement agencies do not arrest illegal immigrants over their illegality, even for ID-related crimes including driving without a license. (I have personally watched local police tell illegal immigrants who had no drivers licenses to walk home after accidents instead of arresting them.) A reason often given for this lenient approach to immigration law enforcement at the local level is that police must overlook the crime of illegal immigration so that illegal immigrants feel comfortable talking to police about robberies, rapes, murders and other serious crimes.

Now imagine this conversation: "Sure, officer. Come on in, have a seat. Want some water or coffee? I'll tell you everything I know about that home invasion robbery next door. Let me move my stash box and rolling papers off the table so you have a comfortable place to take notes."

Wow! Suddenly millions of American marijuana users would help police instead of being scared of them.

The other big reason I've heard for local and state law enforcers ignoring immigration law violations is that they are not trained in the specifics of immigration law and policy. How many are trained specifically in drug law and policy? Or know the difference between a marijuana high, a cocaine high, and a meth high? It seems to me that it would be a lot easier to teach police about immigration law than about the ins and outs of our many layers of drug laws, let alone turn them into expert pharmacologists.

Cutting off drug and human traffickers' incomes

I've seen more than a few weepy tales on TV about the evils of human traffickers and how their clients are at risk during border crossings. Legalizing now-illegal immigration would cut the number of stories we hear about immigrants suffocating in cargo containers or dying of thirst in the Arizona desert.

We see and hear just as many stories about how narcotrafficantes -- often the same people who smuggle humans -- have overwhelmed Mexican authorities and even kill Mexican journalists who report their crimes. Legal marijuana in the U.S. would kill most of the Mexican and border-state drug-smuggling industry just as thoroughly as legal immigration would kill the human-smuggling industry.

We need rational immigration and marijuana policies

Sooner or later, one way or another, leaders of our major political parties will come up with a politically-acceptable way to let illegal immigrants stay here legally. We need those workers to fill "jobs Americans won't do." The alternative -- paying decent wages to people who do low-skill work -- is too horrible to contemplate.

And sooner or later, we need to face the reality that we're not doing any better at keeping people from using marijuana than we are at keeping willing workers out of our country -- and since America's marijuana users are our own sons, daughters, brothers, and sisters, we ought to legalize them before we talk about legalizing illegal aliens.

This hasn't spread widely beyond Net-oriented media yet, but the independently-created Barack Obama MySpace page was taken away by the official Obama campaign from the man who built it -- and who pumped it up to over 160,000 friends. The guy seems to have cooperated with the official campaigners all the way, right up until they wanted to control the page themselves. He then asked them to hire him as a consultant (which would have been a damn smart move, since he was a proven, loyal online community builder). Instead, the Obama folks asked him how much he'd take as a one-time payment. He told them. They decided it was too much and, instead of negotiating, got MySpace to give them control of the URL.

Now myspace.com/BarackObama is a typically bland, consultant-style campaign site with just over 1/10 the number of friends the original had.

Not everyone who has heard about this feels that volunteer Joe Anthony is in the right (as this Slashdot discussion makes clear), but I think the way the Obama campaign handled the situation is somewhere between tacky and moronic.

This is the kind of behavior you expect from an old-line politician surrounded by cigar-chompers, not from someone who touts himself as new and different. It's old-fashioned, top-down, consultant-controlled, pre-Web nonsense, the kind that tells sincere volunteers they shouldn't bother to help the candidate unless they check with headquarters first. Except Joe Anthony *did* check with headquarters, and they approved of what he was doing until both his efforts and the campaign got big-time, which meant that a small-time dude like him suddenly wasn't the right guy to run what *he* had created!

Suddenly I have no desire to volunteer for Obama, and I suspect that a lot of other people are experiencing a similarly sudden non-desire to help him. Millions in the bank.... professional campaigners... I guess Obama no longer needs us ordinary people.

Apparently my hope that Obama was smarter than (and different from) the same-old same-old candidates was naive.

Oh, well. :(

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Also published at roblimo.com)