Some of the final engineering issues have been resolved on the safety and range, but delivery of the first Tesla Roadsters will still be delayed until 2008, according to Autoblog.
Tesla Motors is the Californian company pushing the envelope on a full-electric roadster that performs and looks the equal to any dinosaur-fuel car. Good job so far, but even better once they start shipping them.
Now if they would focus on building a commuter car that wasn’t a golf cart in disguise …
Science, Tech
… but now comes the NY Times’ David Brooks to reveal that the far left “netroots” is spent:
The fact is, many Democratic politicians privately detest the netroots’ self-righteousness and bullying. They also know their party has a historic opportunity to pick up disaffected Republicans and moderates, so long as they don’t blow it by drifting into cuckoo land. They also know that a Democratic president is going to face challenges from Iran and elsewhere that are going to require hard-line, hawkish responses.
For those of us who would prefer a towards-the-center Democrat who can protect the country as that party’s nominee, this is very good news. I have no patience for those that desire a candidate in the opposing party that would be a disaster for America; I will favor good, competent candidates in both parties because I love my country more than my party.
Not that I will vote for a Democrat, of course. But I recognize a move to the center for the Democratic Party, like happened with Bill Clinton’s influence in the 1990’s, is a good move for America.
Politics
I finally found a PHP-based program to handle on-line display and collaborative editing of a gedcom (genealogy database). TNG – The Next Generation genealogy software has the ability to handle gedcoms over 2MB, a limitation found in most of the open source programs such as phpGedView. And TNG comes with a full set of features that make it a definite winner.
Hagan genealogy is a challenge (but then, most families face the same challenges!) Most of the Hagan’s in America are from Irish descent, but all indications are that our line of Hagans are German. That’s been the family oral tradition, and my forays into the settlement of Clarion Country in western PA in the early 1800’s, where my earliest known ancestors lived, reveals baptisms in the German Reformed Church and “German-script” variant spellings (“Hegen”). Marriage into other documented German families, such as my g-g-grandmother’s Heasley family … Samuel Heasley is her brother … also help support that oral tradition.
A program that allowed collaboration was important, as several family members have contributed to my gedcom. In fact, the one I have now is my daughter’s. Leah Hagan Lefler expanded on my original gedcom with more information on the Heasley line, and her husband’s family as well. After my catastrophic computer crash in 2005, I snatched a copy of her updated gedcom and now call it my own.
Genealogy, Tech
… does this picture at Jihad Watch strike you as ironic as well?
Politics
Captain’s Quarters notes that Pope Benedict XVI has “returned to the role of defender of the faith” in calling for more religious tolerance in Islam:
Apparently, Benedict has given up on appeasement. In this speech, he gets far more direct than he did a year ago, demanding reciprocity from Muslims in very clear and pointed terms. His condemnation of Islamist terrorism will add to the sense of Benedict’s challenge to Islam, which supports a similar challenge made a day earlier by a senior Church of England bishop regarding conversions.
Ed’s analysis is right on, and he correctly notes the similarity of Pope John Paul’s assault on Communism and Pope Benedict’s speech about Islam. Both communism and Islam are “intellectually failed systems” that maintain adherents by use of force.
Faith, Politics