This may not work so well

Beijing Bans Cars to Clear Air for Games
They tried something like this in Mexico City once, banning cars on certain days based on their license plate numbers. (I think they only banned one tenth of the cars each day.) It actually increased pollution a little. Many people just went out and bought another car to drive on their off days. The real problem was, what they usually bought was a cheap, old car that polluted much more than their regular one.

Maybe conditions are different in Beijing. Maybe most drivers there can't afford a second car, or maybe there just aren't that many old clunkers for them to buy. But I would not be the least bit surprised if this scheme fails to reduce air pollution the way the officials think it will.

My body is worth $24.58/lb.!

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You can do the math.

Headline of the day

Scientists Give Wild Elephants Photo IDs

This reminds me of an elephant joke from my long-ago youth:

Why do elephants have slits between their toes?

So they can carry their library cards.

Plat du jour--Music Department, part 3

This was an old New York plate I found on the front of a car in the Tanglewood parking lot (which is where I found DAFLUTE also). The rear plate was an ordinary current Florida one.

A great idea

One of the ways the government has come up with to collect unpaid child support is the denial of a passport until the arrears are covered. And now that passports are being required for travel even to Canada, Mexico and the Carribean, a lot more of these deadbeat dads are being forced to fulfill their responsibilites. (It's usually the fathers that owe the money, since mothers are usually awarded custody, which is a whole other issue.)

Millions of dollars have been collected, all of which goes to the custodial parents. I think this is great.

Question of the day

How could they name a hurricane "Flossie?"

Another interesting websearch

On the heels of the websearch from Expedia, somebody at Dell just found my blog--specifically the My hard drive is dead post. They probably also saw Dell comes through. As far as Dell goes, I'm a pretty satisfied customer--though I'll never buy a printer from them again. I don't like having only one source (Dell, of course), for the ink cartridges.

Plat du jour--Music Department, part 2