You Have To Love Robert Hurst

A very depressing read. But maybe it's not, maybe we need some tough love.

Leaving Late

Today is the first day I've had to adjust my schedule to avoid a thunderstorm. As I was about to walk out it kicked up, crap. Hopefully it'll be over in a half hour, otherwise I guess I'll get a ride.

Russ Feingold

Wikipedia Article.

Why didn't this guy run for president? He's clearly the best choice for president from the democratic party.
1. He voted against Iraq. He called it right, from the beginning.
2. He voted against the Patriot Act. He didn't sacrifice his ideals to avoid being labelled anti-american. He voted the way every US Congressmen should have voted.
3. He's frugal with government money. Can you say more conservative than the typical republican candidate (for president)?
4. He's truly anti-lobbying. Well, that's just a good thing.
5. He gives back his pay increases, literally gives them back to the US treasury. Keeping campaign promises even when it costs him personally. Wow. I'm sure he has plenty of money though.
6. He's for universal health care. I don't think you could be a democratic candidate and not hold this position today.

Before the nominations were over I liked both candidates (Obama and McCain). Now that they're finished Obama is for drilling and McCain is an idiot. It can only get worse before November. Maybe we're supposed to ignore everything they say between the nomination and the election and vote based on what they said before that?

Rob Anderson

Jerk of the day.

If you haven't seen his blog yet it's worth a look. He's stopped up a major bike facility improvement in Frisco with a fake bit about a lack of environmental research. It's the perfect example of the abuse of truth by failure to mention scale. His concern is that bike lanes, which will generally remove traffic lanes, will increase congestion and therefore increase pollution.

This is only an issue if:
* The bike lanes go unused. If the cyclists were there, in regular traffic lanes, they were occupying one lane anyway. And if they weren't there, but use the new cycle lanes, then there is less traffic. I know it's the first of those two, but it doesn't matter.
* No one (by percentage, we'll define no one as less than 10%) buys a hybrid. Hybrids don't pollute at rest. They're just that much more efficient from the decreased speed. Although the lost time sure sucks!
* Road use does not change: The roads have to be updated for their real use and their planned use. If road use will increase the congestion point is moot. The city will be building new lanes, or doing something to reduce use, in the future. Now, if these are central areas cycle facilities are a great idea: You probably can't make new lanes for cars. So why not compress traffic by a factor of 10 by getting people on bikes? Because it's impossible? I don't think so. We used to do manual labor, are we so deformed that we can't pedal now?

However, it's much easier to debunk Mr. Anderson: If you read his posts you'll see that he's continually on the attack.

You Negligent Parent, Your Baby is in the Car!

A cool device.

A very cool idea. I wonder: Does the keychain beep because it's sent a signal to do so, or because it isn't sent a signal not to beep?

I just want them to say: "You negligent parent! You left your baby to die!" Is that too much?

This really is a minor disadvantage to the closed in private nature of cars and parking lots. Your car is so safe in that big parking lot that you don't have to worry about anyone noticing a baby in it.

Oregon Bicycle Manualhttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif

The Manual

I found this in my wanderings today. A pretty good read and it's mostly applicable to most states in the US. It seems like any state could take this, change a few sentences, change the Oregon stuff for their state and have their own bike manual.

All they'd have to do is get past the uninformed voting population that would be shocked to find out that bikes go on the road, not the sidewalk.

Holding Marketing to a Higher Standard

As I watched this morning, on the "news," about former. Sen. Edwards extra marital affair I had a thought: When our politicians cheat and lie we get really upset with them. Even if it's only in their personal lives. They're not taking money behind our backs and legislating our money away from us. They're not telling us their bill does one thing when it's actually the first step toward fascism. They're cheating on their wives. They're lying about their life experience.

But, when a company lies to us we go unphased. We actually let their excuses go to work in our minds.

Remember the lead paint thing? It hasn't been very long. Fisher Price, Mattel, etc. Do you still buy toys from these companies? If you collectively said no then I know you're lying. They're still selling lots of new toys on the promise that they've stopped. And I'm sure they have.

So, of course, your children are safe. Lead paint is the only hidden danger a toy can have. In case you don't click links: That was sarcasm.

I'm going to make a very strong statement: The companies which recalled, voluntarily or not, toys with lead paint: Those companies should go out of business. This should happen because we consumers should act in our best interest to punish these companies and put fear in the rest of producers. Fear of deceiving a powerful consumer base.

We won't though. And because we won't:
* Our products are made in other countries. Do you care about American labor? Don't buy things from other countries. It has an effect.
* Sometimes using what is essentially slave labor.
* Our products are often made cheaply, with safety as a secondary concern where it's not legislated.
* We need lemon laws. Since we won't act to protect ourselves from complex products which are unapparently junk the Government has to give us laws letting us sue when we've been had.
* We need anti trust laws. Want to know the efficient way to kill a monopoly? Stop buying their products. Most of these monopolies make new products or unnecessary products.
* Our producers lie to us readily on national television. When they're caught lying they apologize quietly on the news. I see no Mattel ads apologizing for lead paint.


The free market and capitalism has been entrusted to us to watch over and we've sold it to marketing departments. Many with much more psychological knowledge than myself will tell us we can't help it. Frankly, I don't care if we can help it. It's still our fault. We're still paying for it.

Drive Like Your Bike

Popular Mechanics says, among other things, to drive like you're riding a bike to increase fuel economy. You're looking for #4 in the link.

I started doing this when I started riding. I realized I knew about everything about being efficient on a wheeled vehicle because my bike had taught me the hard way! So why not put it to practical use when I'm driving? It's easier on my car/body/bike, uses less fuel/food, and is less stressful/fun.