( a sunset in Japan)"Baby You Can Drive My Car"
(Baby! Vous pouvez conduire ma voiture.)
SECTION 1: Toyota
New York Times reported on rivalry between Toyota and GM around plug-in hybrid cars:
"...Nonetheless, G.M., Toyota and Ford Motor, the world’s three biggest car companies, all are developing plug-in hybrid vehicles.
... Toyota has sold more than one million hybrids worldwide, including more than 800,000 Prius cars.
... Each charge, which takes about four hours, uses the equivalent of 2.7 kilowatt hours of electricity, said Jaycie Chitwood, a senior strategic planner in Toyota’s advanced technologies group.
... But it cannot go very far: the plug-in hybrid’s two batteries hold enough power for only seven miles, said Saúl Ibarra, a product specialist with Toyota who worked on developing the Prius.
By contrast, G.M. claims that the Volt will be able to hold a charge equal to 40 miles, after a six-hour charge.
... The plug-in Prius can stay in electric mode until 62 miles per hour, versus around 30 miles per hour for the conventional Prius, Mr. Iba- rra said...."
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/14/business/14plug.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Toyota is just a car manufacturer. A sort of commodity maker. Besides, cars are killing tens of thousands of people on roads and streets in Japan, the U.S., and other countries every year. Cars are causing environmental pollution and global warming.
I am sorry to say that I have never respected car makers very much.
When I was young, they said that the best students would find employment in the electric/electronic industry, including a computer division, the building industry, or heavy industries, but not so much in car manufactures.
So, it is no wonder that Sony and Panasonic (or Matsushita) have succeeded so much globally; but it is a big surprise that Japanese workers in plants, who have no university diploma, have made Toyota the leading company in Japan and the U.S.
Yet, I have to say that Toyota should still more than ever focus on road fatalities, environmental pollution and global warming as well as dignity of workers without a university diploma.
http://www.tmpcwa.org/index_html
In addition, Toyota should make the Philippines rich as the company have earned so much money in the U.S.
SECTION 2: A US Politician against War-Based Foreign Policy
"...It has been proven time and time again that troop surges don't work. The fruitless war in Afghanistan is not being won militarily.
Under our watch corruption and chaos in Afghanistan has developed and flourished. As the United States seeks to abate terrorism we must also learn from the consequences of a war-based foreign policy."
This is not a statement issued by a Japanese liberal critic or a Japanese politician of the Opposition.
Mr. Dennis Kucinich, a Representative of the U.S., wrote so.
http://blog.thehill.com/
The point of issue is that the U.S. President is requested always to look strong.
So, when attacked physically or personally, he would send troops; when lost in election, he would send troops; and when abused or laughed at by the media, he would send troops.
It is mainly to fulfill the need for the US President to look always strong, in my personal view.
SECTION 3: Three Dog Night
Now the FEN radio has played a 1971 song, "Joy to the World," by Three-Dog Night.
It goes:
"Jeremiah was a bullfrog
he was a good friend of mine
never understand a single word he said...
If I were the king of the world
i tell you what i do
i throw away the cars and the bars and the wars..."
It also sings: "joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea!"
In 1971, everybody heard the Three-Dog Night, the bullfrog, and fishes in the deep blue sea, even in Texas.
* * *
If you had been told in 1971 that Toyota would build its factory in the Soviet Union some of these days, you might have thought that the U.S. military would at last invade North Vietnam, China, and the USSR to occupy the nations and convert their societies to democratic ones based on capitalist market economy.
And you might have wondered how many missiles with a nuclear warhead would be used.
The fact is that the U.S. lost the war in Vietnam due to their poor definition of the war; China was hugely supported financially and technically by Japan so as to produce and export toys and other commodities to the U.S. through Wal-Mart Stores or so on; and Russians have survived the cold war, the debacle of the social and economic systems, and the great confusions on introducing new economy just to succeed in developing its oil and gas fields.
Now, in Russia and the U.S., you can drive a Japanese car alike.
In near future, in Iraq and Afghanistan, they will be probably able to drive Japanese cars alike without fuels made of oil.
What I want to say may be that the US military does not have to invade and stay in Iraq and Afghanistan just like the case in Vietnam, China, and the USSR decades ago.
(Indeed, cars, gasoline, wars, politics, and business are all so tough and still going to last long since the godless century of the 20th.
Truly, it is said in Japan that a wife and a tatami mat should be tough and last long.
Maybe, you are going to be a star if you can drive my car, since it may have a good license plate number, such as "MM-MM" with M supposed to be the number above infinity, namely where your life belonged before its birth through the "M - n" rule.)
"Let None of Them Look Down on You"
(Niemand darf deine Autoritat anzweifeln)