John's Blog: October 2005
Everyone and his dog has a 'blog these days, right? So why not me? If you are interested in anything I'm saying, great! Let's talk about it! (Leave comments.) If not, try one of my other links. Better yet, why are you wasting your time staring at your computer screen, go do something real!
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Bike against terrorism!
Monday, October 17, 2005
In many respects, bicycles are the ideal mode of transportation for the age of terrorism. They of course lessen our dependence on petroleum, thus lessening the leverage that terrorists have over us when they sabotage the petroleum infrastructure. But because everyone can ride their bike wherever and whenever they want, they avoid the problem of mass transit that requires centralized routes and large numbers of people gathering together, which makes it vulnerable to terrorist attacks (as well as being less convenient). In short, bicycles combine energy independence with the security and convenience of decentralization.(Click title to read full post...)The central fact preventing widespread use of bikes for transportation, of course, is our suburban sprawl. Those who live 20 miles from their job cannot (all) be expected to commute even part of the way on their bike every day. Non-farmers who nonetheless live in the country, miles from the nearest grocery store, will not be using bikes for grocery runs. The sprawl factor is perhaps the biggest obstacle to increased use of bikes for transportation, and is much harder to solve than simply adding more cycling infrastructure.
Obviously, neither cars nor mass transit will ever be completely replaced by bikes, even discounting the sprawl factor. There will always be people whose age or health problems will prevent their use of bikes, and there will always be jobs requiring individuals to cover large distances in relatively short periods of time. For these reasons, there certainly needs to be continued research and investment in alternative fuel sources for personal vehicles, as well as increased investment in mass transit technology and infrastructure. (Increased use of various electronic conferencing tools to replace job travel is another alternative.) But to the extent that the bicycle can be promoted, it is a much cheaper and easier alternative than any of the others, and can only improve our society's ability to provide for the transportation needs of its citizens while minimizing our vulnerability to terrorism or any other kind of supply disruption.
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No, you are!
Friday, October 07, 2005
Bush calls his new Supreme Court candidate, Harriet Miers, "the best person I could find." She once called him the most brilliant man she had ever met. I say, if they really believe this about each other ('though I'm not saying they do), they deserve each other. But do the rest of us deserve them?
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Welcome (back) to my blog!
Thursday, October 06, 2005
I've been away for a while. The world has changed. I am no longer using my Shoestring CMS product for my 'blog, having successfully answered the question of "Can it be used to make a 'blog?". (The answer was, "Sort of, but only a small and crude one, and there were still some bugs.") So now my goal is just to get something as simple as possible, like this.I'll be slowly loading the old content back onto this one, in case any of you would like to read it again, or missed it the first time. Assuming, of course, that you care in the first place! Hopefully, I'll be doing it under the same dates as before, so you should find it all in the archives.
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