Rabbit Valley Road

The Big Picture has an amazing gallery of photos, simply titled 2008, The Year in Photographs. It’s sort of a greatest hits collection from one excellent photoblog that I’ve been enjoying all year long.

Donald’s Snow Fight (1942) is not only one of my favorite Christmas cartoons, it’s also one of my favorite animated shorts ever. NBC used to play this along with ‘Pluto’s Christmas Tree’ and a few others I don’t remember before Mickey’s Christmas Carol every year. Go ahead and check it out, because it will probably be taken down at some point.

Charles Krauthammer:

If Princess Caroline wants a seat in the Senate, let her do it by election. There’s one in 2010. To do it now by appointment on the basis of bloodline is an offense to the most minimal republicanism. Every state in the union is entitled to representation in the Senate. Camelot is not a state.

Personally, I liken Caroline Kennedy as “Senator” to Sarah Palin as “Vice-President.” Regular blogging will commence in the very near-future.

CEO’s from the Big Three return to Capitol Hill today to make a second request for a $25 billion bailout to stay afloat during the official recession. All three companies are making efforts to improve their respective images after receiving the smackdown for flying in on private jets on their last visit.

Ford Motors CEO Alan Mulally will make the 10 hour drive in a Ford Focus Hybrid. GM’s Richard Wagoner plans to drive a Chevrolet Malibu hybrid, and no word about Chrysler’s Richard Wagoner mode of transportation, yet. In addition to traveling by hybrid, each CEO is ready to cut his salary to $1, and make several changes in future production:

In a phone interview Monday, Mr. Mulally said Ford will explain to Congress it is rushing to launch new hybrids and electric vehicles by 2011, including a battery-powered commercial van and compact sedan. A plug-in electric vehicle that can be recharged from a standard electrical outlet should follow in 2012, he said.

In a separate interview, Ford Chairman William Ford Jr. said the company is looking beyond survival to opportunity. “We want to come blasting out as a global, green, high-tech company that’s exactly where the country and the Obama administration want us to head,” he said. Ford’s recovery plan “isn’t just about slashing — we’ve already done that slashing and burning — but about building for the future.”

In related news, the UAW meets tomorrow to discuss potential labor concessions with the Big Three.

Heh:

Stocks plunged today more than 650 points on the Dow Jones Industrial average after a government agency officially declared that the country has been in a recession for nearly a year.

The National Bureau of Economic Research said in a statement that it “determined that the decline in economic activity in 2008 met the standard for a recession.”

The irony is that most Americans figured it out a long time ago. But for amusement’s sake, remember when the President said, “we’re not in a recession,” back in April? Oh gotcha media…

I meant to post this last week, but the holiday schedule threw me off. Oil Is Cheap. Why Is Gas, Which Is Made From Oil, Even Cheaper? is a good primer on the relationship between oil and gas prices, specifically why they don’t always follow the exact same trajectory.

The world’s oldest, critical-mass renewable energy source is getting a reprise around the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers:

Massachusetts-based Free Flow Power Corp. is studying the prospects of planting thousands of small electric turbines in the river bed at 55 sites from St. Louis to the Gulf of Mexico, figuring together they could generate enough power to supply 1.5 million homes. The private startup says the cumulative output of 1,600 megawatts would be the equivalent of three small coal-fired power plants or one or two nuclear ones.

The plan, with a possible $3 billion price tag, uses hydrokinetics — electrical generation from river currents or ocean waves. The river’s flow would spin submerged turbines about two feet in diameter and perhaps made of carbon fiber or some other lightweight source durable enough to withstand being hit by debris swept downriver while not interfering with barge traffic.

Three letters missing from this story: T V A, which continues to rely less and less on hydroelectric as dwindling rainfall reduces its potential.

For more on hydrokinetic generation, check out Tapping the Vortex for Green Energy.