So much for the high road. . .

I don't expect more from politicians, so I'm not surprised.

But what I really want to talk about is the idea of inflating your tires to save gas. There was a Time piece linked from CNN that made it sounds like Obama had discovered Cold Fusion or a way to separate Hydrogen from water using rainbow-power. Yes, it is true we could save gas by inflating tires and tuning cars. It makes sense to do. But it is stupid policy, and here is why:

First, it is obvious. We don't need a President to come up with ideas like this for us. Maybe, if you are very liberal, you expect the Gov't to inform you of the obvious and then regulate your life to keep you from harm. I don't. I pride myself on a keen sense for the obvious, not my elected leaders, though.

Second, it is impractical. Yes, inflating everyone's tires to the correct pressure is impractical. Because it relies on the distributed and independent actions of 300 million consumers, it is almost impossible. Especially when you have to overcome "free loader" mentalities. The individual gains of inflating my own tires amounts to something like 1%. So instead of 30 mpg, I get 30.3 mpg. I let you figure out the math from there, but even at $4 a gallon, I have to drive a darned long ways to save enough money to buy a new air freshener. Sure if everybody did it, gas prices would drop and we would all save more money . . . and if everybody would just eat 100 calories less a day, Medicaid and Medicare would be solvent. So, good luck with that.

(Ok, the air freshner math . . .

100 gallons X 30 mpg = 3,000 miles. At $4 a gallon then, $400 = 3,000 miles. 100gallons X 30.3 mpg = 3030 miles. So $400 = 3030 miles. So, you get about an extra gallons-worth of miles over the courts of 100 gallons (duh, thinking about it now), or about $4, the cost of a good air freshner.)

(other side note, I kept to the speed limit and didn't use my AC or roll down windows on my last trip to Utah and got CRAZY good mileage. Close to 40mpg going down to UT and around 37mpg comming back. I didn't believe the 40mpg, so I paid close attention to the mileage on the way back.)