Nancy bought a new car, a Prius, last week (see picture). So far we've used it for a trip to Charlottesville (mostly highway driving), a trip to Shenandoah (mostly up and down driving) and almost a week of driving close to home (both highway and stop and go driving). We've averaged about 50 MPG over all this driving. Now if we, in the USA, are really serious about energy reduction, it seems we've already got an existence proof of a partial solution. There's talk of requiring a 30 MPG minimum on the auto companies. Why not a 50 MPG minimum or even higher with maybe some exceptions for pickups and certain large cars? We don't think we gave anything up except perhaps some acceleration in moving the the hybrid car. I suspect the longer range answer will be an all electric car. GM is supposed to come out with an electric car called the Volt sometime in the next year or so. There are a few hurdles to get over such as recharging stations, the carbon footprint of generating the electricity and the amount and type of new electrical generating plants that will be needed. These hurdles sound a lot less to me than the hurdles currently faced by the hydrogen fuel cell car.

This Wednesday we woke up to find that Barack Obama had all but secured the Democratic nomination for president. It's been a wild ride and I for one am reluctant to totally count Hillary Clinton out. Admittedly her chances don't look very good right now, especially since Obama has tied her in committed super delegates and leads her in primary delegates and in the popular vote. I have to give Senator Clinton credit for fighting as hard as she has for the nomination. She's hung in there even though she has taken some big hits. I also think that the press has been quite biased when covering her campaign which hasn't helped. Senator Obama, on the other hand, has, up until recently, been treated somewhat easier by the press. Some have called him a transformational leader. I have mixed feeling on this. He voted with the majority of Democrats in the Senate over 90% of the time during the 3 years he's been there. His public appearances on the campaign trail do support the transformational title he's been given but, as usual, actions speak louder than words. Were he to become our next president, I only hope he can make at least some of his expressed ideas a reality. It's going to be interesting to see how the Democratic party brings this primary to a close, including the Florida and Michigan situations. Guess we'll all just have to stay tuned.