John's Blog: May 2006

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!

Let me know if you'd like to be to be updated whenever I post a new article. It won't happen every day!

All I have to say about the Da Vinci Code

Tuesday, May 16, 2006
(At least for now...)

With all this hoopla over the release of The Da Vinci Code movie, it might be good to remember how outraged the West got over how outraged the Muslim world got over those Danish cartoons, or, for those with longer memories, Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses. "They don't value free speech like we do", some people said. Is turnabout fair play?
How can you say to your brother, 'Brother, let me take the speck out of your eye,' when you yourself fail to see the plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.
- Luke 6:42

Labels: ,



0 comments

What I've saved by bike commuting

Monday, May 01, 2006
I'm to be interviewed by a local business paper today about my bike commuting. (Thanks for the reference, Bike Coalition!) In preparation, I've calculated some stats about what I've saved by not driving, since I guess that's what people who are responding to high gas prices will want to know.

1Presuming my car got about 25 miles to the gallon.

2This figure is very rough, based on what I remember average gas prices being in previous years, which was mostly guessing.

It's worth noting that this figure is only on gas used for my commute, which is relatively short to begin with. However, once I got into the habit of biking everywhere I could, beyond just my commute, that savings has risen even more, and I found I no longer even needed my own personal car! So, we still have a family car, but since as of December 2005, we are no longer paying for a second registration, insurance policy, and maintenance costs (not shown here)!

3One gallon of gasoline releases about 20 pounds of CO2 into the air, derivation here. So if your car gets 20 miles to the gallon, you release a pound of CO2 per mile. (The figure above does not include CO2 emitted by my breath during the commute, which is less than 1/10 of a pound. Most people exhale just over 2 pounds per day.)

Here are some other related sites I'm associated with locally:

Labels:



1 comments