The Binary Circumstance

Many viewers were shocked when American Idol contestant Constantine Maroulis got voted off this week and Scott Savol got into the top three.

I thought Savol’s performance of "Dance With My Father" was fingernails-on-the-blackboard painful.  Just excrutiating.

Constantine and his band have already signed a record deal so it’s no big loss for him.  But when these "upsets" happen it really makes the show seem like a joke.

This is what one viewer had to say about the outcome of the voting:

“I am shocked by the fact the Constantine was voted off. I started yelling and my husband (who was in the other room watching CSI) came out and he started yelling when he saw it then my mom called and she started yelling and saying if she had a rotten tomato she would throw it at someone.???  –Anonymous

What’s next?  Riots?

Jennifer Wilbanks, who is 32, got cold feet before her wedding and ran away.  Who knows how much time and money was spent trying to find her?  Then she emerged and concocted a story about being abducted.  She lied to the legal authorities.

Jennifer Wilbanks, 32, was in police custody more than 1,420 miles from her home on what was supposed to be her wedding day.

“It turns out that Miss Wilbanks basically felt the pressure of this large wedding and could not handle it,??? said Randy Belcher, the police chief in Duluth, Ga., the Atlanta suburb where Wilbanks lives with her fiance. He said there would be no criminal charges.

Wilbanks, whose disappearance set off a nationwide hunt, called her fiance, John Mason, from a pay phone late Friday and told him that she had been kidnapped while jogging three days before, authorities said. Her family rejoiced that she was safe, telling reporters that the media coverage apparently got to the kidnappers. [emphasis mine]

[…]

Just hours before Wilbanks called her fiance, police in Duluth said they had no solid leads in the case and began dismantling a search center. Relatives offered a $100,000 reward for information and were planning a prayer vigil.

The hunt for Wilbanks had consumed Duluth, a tight-knit town. Her picture and newspaper articles about her disappearance were on telephone poles and shop windows. Police had also seized three computers from the home she shared with Mason.

[John] Mason [her fiance] had become a target of suspicion and agreed to a private polygraph test, which Wilbanks’ family said he passed. He had been negotiating with authorities for another test.

Martha Stewart spent five months in jail and is currently under house arrest for lying to legal authorities.  Unlike Wilbanks, Stewart’s action of selling some stock before some bad news became public, did not cost the taxpayers any money or steal any time or money from private individuals. (It was the government’s prosecution of her that lowers the value of her company’s stock and also cost the taxpayers millions.)

Wilbanks on the other hand has stolen a lot from numerous people: the time spent by volunteers, the privacy of those who had their computers seized, and the tax dollars spent on the nationwide investigation.

Yet, she will not be prosecuted. 

She is 32, not a child, and fully capable of understand the consequences of her actions on others, yet she’s being treated like a little girl of five or six, who just got scared, did something she shouldn’t have and then lied about it.

Ray Schultz, chief of police in Albuquerque, said Wilbanks “had become scared and concerned about her impending marriage and decided she needed some time alone.??? He said she traveled to Las Vegas by bus before going to Albuquerque.

“She’s obviously very concerned about the stress that she’s been through, the stress that’s been placed on her family,??? he said. “She is very upset.???

Interesting how she commits a fraud upon a number of people, including her fiance, friends and family, her community, government officials and the taxpayers and yet she’s seen as the victim.

This is what happens when you have a legal system based on faith and emotions rather than reality.

UPDATE 5/2/05: The State of Georgia might press charges.

Gwinnett County District Attorney Danny Porter told NBC’s "Today" show Monday that he hoped to decide by later in the day whether to prosecute Wilbanks, 32, on a charge of violating the law by reporting a crime that didn’t exist.

Not too long ago, my 1987 Ford Ranger blew its head gasket.

I had another car, 1987 Chevrolet Cavalier which has been very reliable transportation for ten years, but it wasn’t any good for carrying anything.  It was originally my father’s car which I got after he died.  I had an emotional attachment to it because it always reminded me of my dad when I drove it.

I decided not to spend the money (more than $2,000) to fix the Ford Ranger because the truck was 18 years old and I’d only spent $1,000 on it to begin with.  I had really enjoyed its utility and its character.

Here’s the old Ford Ranger.

I didn’t like having two vehicles, both of them old, so I decided that I would get another small truck and get rid of the Cavalier.

A local dealer was having a huge sale of "reprocessed" cars and trucks and I found one there that I liked at a good price (after much haggling) and they even took the Cavalier in trade.  It’s a 2002 Mazda, with 70,000 miles but it looks like new, and drives really well.  It’s got electronic switchable 4-wheel drive, V6, automatic, and just about every other option you can think of.

Here’s the new Mazda truck.

Ironically, when I took it over to the Mazda dealer to get a second key made, I found out that these Mazda trucks are really just Ford Rangers inside a Mazda skin.  Ford owns a controlling interest in Mazda.

Sadly, it doesn’t get mileage as good as either my old Ranger or Cavalier, both which had four-cylinder engines.  Both of my old cars got 20mpg, with the Cavalier doing even better than that on the highway.

The salesman told me the Mazda would get about 25 miles to the gallon which was an outrageous lie.  I found out later that it’s only rated for 15-19.  The four cylinder, manual Mazdas probably get around 25.

With gas being so expensive, I started monitoring the mileage in the new truck on the first tank of gas.  The first tank only got 14.5mpg, the second 15.4mpg, and the third 14.4mpg.

Then I remembered that when I bought the original Ford Ranger, I was also disappointed in the gas mileage.  I subsequently found out the tires were underinflated and when I pumped them up to the proper pressure the truck suddenly felt like it had wings.  None of the tires had looked flat, but some were very low on pressure.

So I checked the Mazda’s tires which are larger than any tires I’ve owned before.  I saw they were rated for 80psi.  I’ve never had tires that were rated for anything over 35psi.  Should the tires really be pumped up to 80psi?

I checked the pressure and at it was between 30-35psi on all four tires.

After researching it on the Internet, I decided that the tires definitely needed much more air and I’m surprised that the dealer hadn’t properly inflated them.  The truck had been detailed and all the fluids had been changed so I don’t know why they didn’t put more air in the tires.

The sticker on the door which says the tires should be in the low 30’s specifically refers to "P" type tires which are "passenger" tires.  The new truck has "LT" type tires which stands for "light truck."  Light truck tires require much more air.

The amount of air also depends on how much load the truck is carrying.  At maximum load they are rated for minimum 80psi, so I figured since I don’t often have a full load, they should have less than that.  I found several web sites seemed to confirm that.  (The sidewalls of passenger tires give the maximum amount of pressure.)

So I’ve pumped the front tires up to 70psi and the back to about 60psi.  They didn’t blow up.

As with the Ranger, the truck suddenly felt much lighter and I noticed that it turned easier.

Underinflation is the number one cause of tire failure.  Bridgestone/Firestone blamed low tire pressure for the failure of its tires on Ford Explorers.

Low tire pressure is bad for the environment because all those tires that fail end up on the dump and fuel efficiency is compromised.  This page is a good summary of the problems with low tire pressure and the benefits of proper tire pressure.

The higher tire pressure in my truck has definitely improved the gas mileage.  The average for three tanks on the underinflated tires was 14.8mpg for combined city and highway. 

After adding more air, the average for two tanks is 16.3mpg combined city and highway.  That’s an extra 1.5 mpg!  That’s 10% better mileage just from adding more air.

I think most people hardly ever check their tire pressure.  Think how much gas and money would be saved if everybody in the U.S. habitually checked their tire pressure.

Today, it cost me $35 to buy 3/4 of a tank of gas.  I can console myself a little in the knowledge that with underinflated tires, I would have paid $38.50 to go the same number of miles.

With gas prices being what they are, saving 10% on each tank of gas will mount up quickly.

Remember all those TV clips showing how every person who was involved in the selection of the Pope took a vow of secrecy?

Looks like vows of secrecy are as easily broken as vows of celibacy and poverty.

Who gave TIME Magazine the scoop?  Will they be punished?  And if so, how?

This week’s TIME Magazine recounts the politics behind the selection of Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger as the new Pope Benedict XVI.

In the days before the conclave, almost every Cardinal who deigned to speak to the press declared that he was praying to the Holy Spirit for guidance in choosing the successor to John Paul II. The Holy Spirit’s efforts in this particular case began 18 months ago, with a stealth campaign that in the end transfigured an unpalatable candidate into the inevitable Pontiff, turning Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger of Germany into Pope Benedict XVI. The momentum, orchestrated by key Curia Cardinals, was such that a last-ditch attempt by liberals to derail it petered out after the first round of voting.

[…]

One Cardinal elector said many of the 20-member Latin American bloc closely aligned with the German’s traditionalist stance arrived intent on getting Ratzinger elected. By Tuesday, Martini, who does not dislike Ratzinger personally, withdrew his candidacy and might have even thrown his support to him.

Liberals who could not stomach that option reportedly swung over to Buenos Aires’ Jesuit Jorge Cardinal Bergoglio in an anyone-but-Ratzinger move, though several sources said the Argentine was himself aligned with the German. But the second balloting saw Ratzinger reach 60 votes. By the third, he was just shy of the 77 required for the papacy. By the fourth, he had won 95 out of 115.

God works in mysteriously human ways.