Onyx

Onyx (owned by Tammy O.) was the only other field spaniel at the show! Onyx is a beautiful all-black field spaniel, and here Tammy is putting him through his paces in the show ring. The profile of Onyx’s head is a classic field spaniel profile…

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The Run

Here’s Miki’s run in the conformation ring on Sunday. This time the judge was a sweet little lady from Texas, with a pronounced accent. This judge seemed to enjoy the happy, wiggly puppy that Miki was on this run. On Saturday Miki was downright restrained compared with Sunday, when he was a bundle of energy just barely constrained by the leash. But everybody had fun, and Miki (once again in a highly competitive field of one) took first place!

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Rally

Mayli — owned by Bree, whom I posted photos of yesterday — made a run on the rally course on Sunday.

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The Show

Here are some more photos from around the show on Sunday, when we were only there for a couple of hours.

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Prius v. Hummer

The Hummer, of course:

When you pool together all the combined energy it takes to drive and build a Toyota Prius, the flagship car of energy fanatics, it takes almost 50 percent more energy than a Hummer - the Prius’s arch nemesis.

Through a study by CNW Marketing called “Dust to Dust,” the total combined energy is taken from all the electrical, fuel, transportation, materials (metal, plastic, etc) and hundreds of other factors over the expected lifetime of a vehicle. The Prius costs an average of $3.25 per mile driven over a lifetime of 100,000 miles - the expected lifespan of the Hybrid.

The Hummer, on the other hand, costs a more fiscal $1.95 per mile to put on the road over an expected lifetime of 300,000 miles. That means the Hummer will last three times longer than a Prius and use less combined energy doing it.

Read the whole thing.

When you factor in the need for battery replacement (expected to average every 2.5 to 3.5 years), the picture looks even worse for the gas/electric hybrids.

This sort of sloppy thinking seems to permeate the environmental movement. Technology that “feels good” (or green) gets lots of hype and support — and sales — but really isn’t doing the earth any favors. The current buzz about ethanol and hydrogen has exactly the same set of problems — when you figure in the whole lifecycle, the earth loses on these (although hydrogen coupled with nuclear power generation is a possible exception). Even photovoltaic systems aren’t as green as they appear to be. When you figure in the power required to manufacture the solar cells, the associated electronics, and the energy storage system (usually batteries that must be replaced every 3 to 5 years), photovoltaic systems don’t look so heroic.

The Goreacle has raised this to an art form…