Good mileage? Who needs it?

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Well, so much for getting cars with better mileage and less dependence on oil and gasoline.

The Senate yesterday defeated an effort to increase fuel efficiency standards for cars, sport utility vehicles and pickup trucks by 50 percent over 13 years, voting instead for a measure — backed by the auto industry — that would give the Bush administration two years to develop its own mileage rules…. Yesterday’s Senate action — which included passage of a measure to exempt pickup trucks from any new fuel economy standards — followed an intensive lobbying and advertising campaign by the auto industry.

Going, going, gone

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There’s a very interesting article on Slate talking about Arthur Andersen’s disappearing act, as the accounting firm enters negotiations investigating being absorbed by other major accounting firms (disclaimer — I am presently employed by Todays Office Staffing, a temp agency who contracts me to Xerox, who has me running the print shop for Arthur Andersen‘s Seattle office — however, I learn more about the current Enron/Andersen scandal from papers and the ‘net than I do from the office).

Which flawed election?

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I don’t know what he’s talking about, but as I was just delivering something to another floor, Bush was on TV giving a press conference. I walked by just in time to hear him say something along the lines of “…we’ll see what we can do about this flawed election.” My first thought — with the caveat that I have no context for his statement — is he really one to talk?

(This CNN story talks about the press conference, however, since the conference is in progress right now [2:45pm], there’s just an overview of what was expected to be talked about, but the article may be updated later.)

Fun with Π

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My birthday is within the first 100 million digits of Π (specifically, 1,040,331 digits in [or 11,057 digits in, if I use the non-zero-padded version of my birthday 5373]). So is my current phone number, sans area code (49,168,544 digits in). My social security number isn’t, though. Bummer.