The New Math

I have a new favorite television show. Top Gear, on BBC America. Three middle-aged British guys that love cars, love engineering and love to drive. And they have British accents. Everything is better with a British accent. I don’t know why, it just is. And I would like to know where they managed to find a Nissan 300 ZX Twin Turbo with only 103,000 miles on it for $3,000. I tried today. Wasn’t happening.

Although the relief wells will not be completed until at least August, British Petroleum now claims they have partially fitted a siphon over the severed pipe and is containing approximately 10,000 to 15,000 barrels a day. While this sounds like significant improvement over containment of zero barrels a day, it also provides a little bit of clarity to some of the dubious accounting BP was attempting to feed the public as recently as a week ago. Prior to “operation top kill,” BP’s oil leakage estimate was 5,000 barrels a day. According to their own press release, cutting the top off the pipe in order to install this siphon increased the flow of oil into the water by about 20%. Today they claim between one-third and three-quarters of the oil is being piped to their surface containment ships. So, a couple quick calculations, and we have an interesting scenario. Five percent of 5,000 barrels is 250 barrels. And one-third or three-quarters of 5,250 barrels is either 1,733 or 3,938 barrels. Both of those numbers are significantly less than 10,000 barrels per day, which is what BP claims they are currently collecting. Obviously, 5,000 barrels a day was a gross underestimation of the spill. A more accurate estimation of the spillage, according to British Petroleum’s most recent capture claims, is somewhere in the neighborhood of 13,334 to 45,000 barrels a day - much closer to the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration estimates BP spent so much time and effort disputing. Only to inadvertently confirm them in the process of trumpeting their progress.

Last week, a prominent South Carolina Republican lobbyist came forward claiming that he too had an affair with Republican gubernatorial candidate Nikki Haley. Then, in a radio interview discussing the primary race, Republican State Senator Jake Knotts said of Haley, “We already got one raghead in the White House. We don’t need another in the governor’s mansion.” “Raghead” is a racial slur referring to people of Arab decent. President Obama is Hawaiian. Nikki Haley is Indian. Jake Knotts later claimed he was “joking.” Jake Knotts is an idiot. When did it become acceptable for idiots who make racist comments in public to be elected to public office in South Carolina. Wait. We are talking about South Carolina, right? Perhaps I’m asking the wrong question.

For the past 2 months, artists have been painting a mural on two walls of the Miller Valley Elementary School in Prescott, Arizona. The purpose of the mural is to promote environmentally friendly transportation, and prominently features the images of four children - all students at the school the largest of which is an Hispanic boy. Of the 380 K-5th grade students attending, 179 of them are Hispanic. This, apparently, was too much for City Councilman Steve Blair, who used his radio show to launch a campaign to have the mural removed. Three guesses as to why. Don’t worry, you’ll only need one. During his May 21st broadcast, Blair complained to his audience that the most prominent child in the painting was black, (which, he isn’t), saying, “I am not a racist individual, but I will tell you depicting a black guy in the middle of that mural, based upon who's president of the United States today and based upon the history of this community when I grew up, we had four black families - who I have been very good friends with for years - to depict the biggest picture on that building as a black person, I would have to ask the question, 'Why?’” Shortly following this outburst, Principal Jeff Lane asked the artists - who claim they and the students helping them paint have been subjected to months of racial epithets hurled at them by some passing drivers (Blair listeners perhaps?) - to “lighten” the faces of the children depicted in the mural.

Fortunately, saner heads seem to have prevailed, and the principal has apologized to the artists, the kids and the community and insisted the mural go forward as originally planned. Good times, noodle salad. But there are also three life lessons and at least two good questions we can take away from this incident. First, if ever someone starts a sentence with the phrase, “I am not a racist, but...,” that person is probably a racist. Second, if ever someone utters the phrase, “I don’t hate black people, I have black friends,” that person does not have any black friends. They may know of some black people, or have seen some black people in the frozen food aisle at Walmart that one time, but they do not have any black friends. Third, it doesn’t matter to Steve Blair that the boy in the mural is Hispanic, and not black. His point is perfectly clear. Steve Blair doesn’t like people who don’t resemble Steve Blair. The fact that in this case those people are only eight years old is irrelevant to Steve Blair. Fourth, how morally bankrupt and devoid of humanity do you have to be to yell racial epithets at K thru 5th graders painting a mural on the walls of their school? How miserable is your life that you get pleasure from verbally abusing an eight-year-old? And finally, what the HELL is the problem with Arizona? Almost every week - sometimes twice a week - someone in Arizona does something stupid enough to make the state look like a 21st century version of George Wallace’s Alabama. Seriously. Is it the heat? Is it the lack of water? What is it? Help us Arizona. Help us, so we can help you.

Finally, Apple released its fourth generation iPhone on Monday, to the collective orgasm of billions of people. During the demonstration of several of the new features, Steve Jobs experienced trouble getting an Internet web page to load on his brand new super phone. To may iPhone users, this came as no surprise. What was surprising, was AT&T’s announcement that it will no longer offer an unlimited data plan for any of its smart phones or the iPad. Plans will now cost $25 and have a 2GB limit, with a $10 charge for each additional GB after that. People who purchased iPads with the intention of burning up Netflix and streaming Internet radio and all those wonderful modern conveniences are going to have to pay significantly more for the privilege, and many of them are not happy about it. They claim that AT&T should use some of the profit they make from charging their customers ridiculous overage fees and upgrade their network. But the company is sticking to it’s guns and making no apologies. Bandwidth, they claim, is a finite resource, and when a few people utilize so much bandwidth, they slow down the network for everyone else.

I would like to postulate a theory. Is it possible that the iPhone’s exclusivity to AT&T is the proximate cause of its decision to move away from an unlimited data plan model? According to Steve Jobs, 58% of smart phone web browsing was done on iPhones, and 100% of that browsing was done over the AT&T network. If that browsing had been shared across the other two major networks (Sprint and Verizon), would AT&T be experiencing the bandwidth crunch it currently has to deal with, especially in high-traffic areas like New York City? It seems like a little less exclusivity might have benefitted everyone in this case.