One of the added benefits of driving a hybrid automobile is the low noise level experienced, particularly at low speeds when only the electric motor (instead of the internal combustion engine) is engaged. I rented a new Toyota Prius a few months back. I enjoyed it quite a bit.

A brief word about me: I like quiet. I moved two counties away from my job, into the mountains, because I am tired of hearing helicopters, jets, sirens, traffic, horns, shouting people. When I eat dinner in a restaurant I detest your shrieking or crying baby. I want you to shut the hell up in the theatre. I’ve had it up to here with loud people in public or on their cell phones.

Quiet good. Loud bad.

So now, considering that a hybrid vehicle is quiet, well, wait; apparently they’re too quiet for blind people.

What the hell?

And more: there’s a push to make hybrid cars louder:

The recently introduced Pedestrian Safety Enhancement Act of 2008 proposes a two-year study determining the most practical way for hybrid and electrical vehicles – cars that are functionally silent at slow speeds – to provide non-visual cues for pedestrians. The solution will likely establish a minimal sound level for these cars. The automotive industry will then have two years to incorporate this change into new vehicles.

A Toyota representative says:

Toyota spokesman Bill Kwong says he wasn’t aware of the issue and believes that the responsibility lies with drivers and pedestrians to watch out for each other. Mr. Kwong adds, “One of the benefits of the vehicles is that they don’t contribute to traffic noise.”

I’m with Kwong. This is just plain stupid. To blind people agreeing with this issue: just shut the hell up. Try teaching your dogs about cars in general. This entire world wasn’t designed for you, and I am getting so damned tired of having the very few rule the very many.

Victor Davis Hanson makes an excellent point in his newest piece, “Brave Old World.”

In reality, to the extent globalism worked, it followed from three unspoken assumptions:

First, the U.S. economy would keep importing goods from abroad to drive international economic growth.

Second, the U.S. military would keep the sea-lanes open, and trade and travel protected. After the past destruction of fascism and global communism, the Americans, as global sheriff, would continue to deal with the occasional menace like a Muammar al-Gaddafi, Slobodan Milosevic, Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, Kim Jong-il or the Taliban.

Third, America would ignore ankle-biting allies and remain engaged with the world — like a good, nurturing mom who at times must put up with the petulance of dependent teenagers.

But there have been a number of indications recently that globalization may soon lose its American parent, who is tiring, both materially and psychologically.

I do not disagree with this premise. But please read on (and peruse the entire article, if you will) and note Mr. Hanson’s conclusion:

So, what a richer but more critical world has forgotten is that in large part America was the model, not the villain — and that postwar globalization was always a form of engaged Americanization that enriched and protected billions.

Yet globalization, in all its manifestations, will run out of steam the moment we tire of fueling it, as the world returns instead to the mindset of the 1930s — with protectionist tariffs; weak, disarmed democracies; an isolationist America; predatory dictatorships; and a demoralized gloom-and-doom Western elite.

If America adopts the protectionist trade policies of Japan or China, global profits plummet. If our armed forces follow the European lead of demilitarization and inaction, rogue states advance. If we were to treat the environment as do China and India, the world would become quickly a lost cause.

If we flee Iraq and call off the war on terror, Islamic jihadists will regroup, not disband. And when the Russians attack the next democracy, they won’t listen to the United Nations, the European Union or Michael Moore.

Brace yourself — we may be on our way back to an old world, where the strong do as they will, and the weak suffer as they must.

So few realize: when you damage America, be it by those internally or externally, you damage and threaten the entire planet. The Demorats simply do not, cannot, understand this clear concept.

What do you suppose might be in our immediate future, given the potential of a Barack Hussein Obama win, and its concomitant “owned” House and Senate?

And not much news about it in the MSM or in the blogs.

Pakistan’s President Gen. Pervez Musharraf will step down, facing impeachment.

Pakistan’s President Gen. Pervez Musharraf will not step down, facing impeachment.

When Musharraf exits (should he), what do you think might become of the region — replete with Pakistan’s pile of fissionables? Read my earlier thoughts here.

Here is Barack Hussein Obama at his obfuscatory best and, more pointedly, note the actual refusal to make a true comment:

DALLAS – U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama side-stepped a pointed query about abortion on Saturday by “mega-pastor” Rick Warren during a televised forum.

Asked at what point a baby gets “human rights,” Obama, who strongly supports abortion rights, said: “… whether you’re looking at it from a theological perspective or a scientific perspective, answering that question with specificity . . . is above my pay grade.”

There you have it. All you need to know about Barack Hussein Obama.