Once a year the professional golf community comes to visit my neck of the woods, in the form of the PGA’s Champion’s Tour.

It’s an event that changes the character of the community in several ways: spectators swell the size of the town, there’s a media focus that usually doesn’t exist...and an actual, no kidding, traffic jam might develop—on a weekend.

It’s a great economic barometer, as well. Despite the efforts of the Professional Golfers Association (the PGA), there is a lot more of an upper-income demographic attending the tournament than there is a Happy Gilmore kind of crowd.

Which brings me to the point of today’s examination: what can we learn about the state of the economy from the perspective of the tricklers, as opposed to how it looks from the point of view of the trickled upon?

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The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has let us know that it is offical:

As of today, Miller Brewing Co. no longer exists — other than in the hearts and minds of those who worked there, and those who drank its beer.

The company once known as Miller Brewing is now MillerCoors LLC, a joint venture of Miller Brewing and Coors Brewing Co. The new company officially begins business today, following Monday’s signing of the closing documents by executives from SABMiller Plc and Molson Coors Brewing Co., corporate parents of Miller Brewing and Coors Brewing.

I'm not sure how the rest of Wisconsin feels, but I was saddened to hear this news. Maybe I am overreacting and need to understand that buyouts and consolidations are a part of the modern global world. Maybe I am naive to think that Miller and Wisconsin are somehow synonymous and, therefore, immune to outside influence--its kind of like the Packers, no?

Check out the new MillerCoors website--if you really want. :(

There is no way to save us from our dependence on oil, we are told, except to drill for more oil wherever it can be found—and some will even tell us it’s possible that there’s so much oil not yet discovered off the coast that all our problems will be over once we poke a few holes in the ground and git ‘er done.

Of course, it’s also possible there are monkeys to be found in certain of my body cavities…and I’m hoping most fervently that no one proposes drilling in my ANWAR in an effort to find out.

But what if there was another way?

What if we could afford to convert our gas-powered cars to something else…something that could reduce our national gasoline consumption by 70%?

Something we could put into place just as quickly as offshore wells could be drilled—and maybe even faster.

A “Manhattan Project” of fleet conversion, if you will.

Well, Gentle Reader, I think we can—and today we examine a way it might be done.

Those who are regular readers in this space probably recognize this as the part of the diary where we introduce background information while keeping the plan a bit of a secret…just to build the suspense…but today, let’s do the opposite: let’s open with a plan, and then provide the supporting numbers.