Here I Go

So just lasr night I blogged about how politics feels too serious to blog about so you know, you just know, that now I'm going to blog about some current events thing. And yes it's the cars. Today in the Times there's a story about a GM plant in Ohio closing. It made SUVs. At one point, it made 20,000 marginally safe, gas-guzzling, road hogging SUVs a month. I feel badly that the people at the plant lost their jobs -- "It was a good ride," one said, "I just wish it would've lasted." But, really, how could cars that get, like, what, 12 miles to the gallon be a good long-term business investment?

From the very beginning oil has been a limited resource of which the US doesn't have much. Putting aside the environmental impact of cars that burn fossil fuels like there's no tomorrow, assuming, as the decision makers at GM did, the gas party would last forever was just dumb. You don't really have to have an in-depth knowledge of the car business to grasp that. OK, they were focused on short-term profits. Of course, the country had an unquenchable (and indefensible) desire for SUV, but doesn't it take a genius to have recognized that there would be an end. So now tomorrow has come. What a surprise.