As IF Times

link New drug being developed using compound found in red wine could help humans live until they are 150 | Mail Online.

On the one hand, this alleged miracle compound is found in red wine, so it’s not a hardship to take unlike a dose of Buckley’s mixture.  In fact, if this story is true, there’s a good chance many of my friends are well on their way to a prolonged life based solely on their normal wine consumption.  On the other hand, why would anyone want to live to be 150?  Unless your body is capable of doing anything beyond clicking the TV controller by then, what’s the point of being 150?

Of course, I can see corporations wanting to cash in on the longer life expectancies by pushing the same old vanity stuff on older consumers.  Face creams and face lifts will be big business.  They can declare that 120 is the new 90 by  showing ads depicting 100 year olds climbing hiking trails with their walkers.  Think about the type of Viagra commercials that will run.  Hugh Hefner will be dating 23 year olds…..again.  At the other end of the consumer market,  an announcement that Depends are 20 percent off at Costco will cause stampedes.

There are other more pragmatic consequences as well.  How do people sustain themselves financially since most target 65 as a retirement age?  You’d have to accumulate a lot of money to live another lifetime with whatever you’ve managed to save.  If people live longer, then perhaps people will have to work longer too.  If you think service is slow now at government offices, wait until you are being served by a  clerk pushing a hundred.

Nobody wants to die prematurely, but in nature, all things have an expiry date.  Things just naturally wear out and all warranties end.  Just because science enables amazing feats of longevity, should that capability be exercised?   Recently, there was an article in which some scientists claimed to be able to revive an extinct species. Why? Presumably, it went extinct for a reason.  People should take it as a matter of fate that when a species fails to survive, there is likely a darn good reason why that happened.  Usually, it boils down to two things.  The species either ran out of things to eat, or itself was so good to eat, that other species finished them off.  Either way, it seems to be Nature’s way of purging the herd.  Even if it were possible to resurrect a Tyrannosaurus Rex, of what use is that?  Then there’s that whole matter of  the time/space continuum being upset or something to that effect.

There are those that believe that life and death both deserve to run their course with a certain sense of dignity and I happen to be one of them.  We are opening up a huge barrel of unforeseen consequences by artificially extending the natural path of life.   We’ll see see bald, wrinkly men who will sport pony tails in order to capture their coolness.  Tattoos that seemed like a good idea during the impetuousness of youth will look like blobs of amorphous mold on leathery skin.   These are things that once seen cannot be unseen.  Let’s spare everyone.

link Green Cars Have a Dirty Little Secret.

We see this often these days.  People are so smart that they are actually dumb.   From the very first time that Cro-Magnon man picked up a stick to beat up an adversary, necessity has always been the mother of invention.  That’s the way it works.  People will always tinker with things just for the intellectual amusement of tinkering, but for the most part, inventions make it to general usage because there’s a practical and commercial utility to it.  Some inventions are really of marginal utility; they exist only because someone sold the idea of its usefulness.  The electric toothbrush is such an example.  I’m sure many would be lost if they had to manually brush their teeth.  Up, down, up, down, oh the humanity.   Still, it does fulfill some consumer need.

For this reason, my invention of a gas powered pillow fluffer never took off as I had originally anticipated.  Neither did my solar powered dog polisher,  or hand cranked nose hair plucker.   Because of the mass delusion that has been foisted on a naive public by global warming zealots over the past few generations,  vast resources have been given to people preaching the quixotic vision of green power.   While it’s hard to argue with the general intent of this vision, the free market has not adopted the results of the “innovations” thus far.  In the case of many consumer items today, the populace have come to embrace the whole notion of green/sustainable/organic/natural items.  It’s only a matter of time before they start selling shoes made of seaweed at Whole Foods.  They’re only good for about 300 steps, but at least they are green.  In the case of battery powered green cars, the resources put in compared to the results achieved are truly dismal despite what the optimists claim.

Spending $40,000 to buy an electric vehicle with the lofty range of 60 miles would have no commercial takers unless you were a) an idiot, b) a zealot, c) too rich for your own good, or d) all of the above, the worst possible combination.   Instead of spending untold billions of taxpayer dollars to fund technology that is inherently flawed, the simplest solution is right in front of us.

Buy cars with smaller engines.  The internal combustion engine has been around for a long time and has gone through numerous refinements by all manufacturers.  They have never been more efficient in power transmission and continue to be cleaner burning as well.  Porsche goes as far as to claim that the air going in to their engines is not as clean as the air coming out of their exhaust pipes.  That may be a stretch, but if you’ve ever breathed the air in Beijing or Shanghai, it’s somewhat believable.  Regardless, the technology already exists for fuel sipping small displacement engines that are as efficient as some so called green electric vehicles, especially when factoring in the cost of battery production.  More importantly,  the biggest advantage of existing gas powered cars is that people can actually afford them and are able to plan trips beyond the range of what their eyes can see.   A road trip in an electric car is essentially a ride to the city limits.

In this day and age, with a gas station every mile or so in most cities, idiots still manage to run out of gas.  What makes people think there will be charging stations available when the battery goes kaput while on their way to a doctor’s appointment?  The irony is that they will call the automobile club for a rescue.  They of course will show up with a gas powered car.   If people really want to push the green powered nonsense, maybe they can bring back horses and covered wagons.  We know horses are good for at least 60 miles, although acceleration is nothing to brag about.