where to order cialis
cialis cod
prescription cialis
next day cialis
cheap cialis
where to order lipitor
lipitor cod
prescription lipitor
next day lipitor
cheap lipitor

This post comes a little late, since I’ve just spent two weeks in Morocco on a Country Walkers’ walking tour. Morocco is very interesting, with a rich culture and really friendly people. The weekend before flying to Morocco, I attended a “Tube Tasting” at Oswald’s Mill in eastern Pennsylvania. Here is the mill itself:

It is a 18th century grain mill built right into the house, and has been refurbished over the last ten years by Jonathan Weiss. Jonathan’s “Tube Tastings” have been an invitation-only event since 2002, where people into vintage, exotic, and exceptional home-built equipment can set-up and compare their projects. Jonathan is also a world-class cook, and cooked all the food for the gathering - and the food was fantastic!

The main listening room takes up nearly all of the third floor. The open beams, various vintage paraphernalia (verging on steam-punk), and the 3rd-to-4th floor opening (see the large windows on the picture to the left) gave plenty of room for the speakers to breath. The window openings in the two-foot thick stone walls made perfect turntable mounts.

The impressions given in this article can only give a glimpse of the totality of the tasting. The official 2008 Tasting page is not yet up (although 2003 through 2007 tastings can be seen here), but there is a pretty complete review of the 2008 Tasting at the 6 Moons site, with many tasty pictures. If I leave anyone’s equipment out of the following text, it is due to my inability to listen to everything plus my fading memory of the event three weeks ago.

read more »

Once again I will impose on the hospitality of John Atwood and write an essay that is entirely off-topic - so here goes, folks:

I’ve been thinking about the implications of Peak Oil and climate change. I’m not one of the chicken-little types that thinks the electrical grid will collapse in ten year’s time, or agriculture will run short of (fossil-fuel based) fertilizer. I’m enough of an economist to know the market, even though it is heavily manipulated by oil companies and OPEC, will still decide how the transition away from fossil fuels will happen. We won’t just suddenly run out one year; instead, the price of oil will go up - and up - and up, broken by the inevitable market disruptions and political turmoil. So the long-term (over decades) trend will be steadily upward, descending only when fossil fuels are almost entirely phased out and used only for chemical feedstocks (instead of fuel).

The survivalists think that Western Civ will collapse of its own weight and complexity, and the USA, at least, will descend into some kind of Mad Max end-times movie of guns, stored-food, and local-militias. I don’t. The market will speak instead. People forget that until very recently, the price of gas was only a small part of the total lifecycle cost of a car or truck.

Think about it. If a $20,000 car is driven for 120,000 miles over a ten-year lifetime, and consumes 20 mpg, it uses up 6,000 gallons of gasoline. At US$1 a gallon, the price of gas from Reagan through Clinton, that’s only $6,000. Big deal. No wonder Detroit sold a lot of upscale body-on-frame trucks disguised as SUV’s. Why not? Big and luxurious, the way Americans like it. If the 5,000 lb behemoth consumes a miserable 13 mpg, that’s still only about $9,000 over the life of the vehicle. It’s really not all that much if you want to haul your family, and a boat or trailer, out to the boondocks in air-conditioned CD/DVD player comfort.

The 13 mpg SUV looks a little different at $4 a gallon. Now that’s $37,000. Uh-oh; that’s the price of the vehicle. At the existing European price of $8 a gallon, that’s $74,000. Now we’re talking real money. If worldwide Peak Oil becomes a reality over the next ten years (and independent consensus opinion in the oil industry is that it will), then the USA will be seeing $10 a gallon - before 2018. Now that SUV will be eating $90,000 over its lifetime. Most SUV’s will see the junkyard before the ten years is out - the operating costs will be just too high for many people, especially for an aging, out-of-style vehicle. We’re not talking about a collectible musclecar here, like a Shelby Mustang, but one of millions of Ford and GM family-haulers with a trailer hitch on back.

read more »