Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: fascism, police state, surveillance, United States Constitution
…to the Constitution of the United States. At least if it’s written here you know the NSA will read it.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
There is no way that indiscriminate domestic surveillance, data “collection”, whatever without a warrant can be considered lawful.
NHTSA based its decision on an investigation launched in August 2010, after complaints by consumer advocates that the fuel tanks in some Jeep vehicles leaked and caught fire after rear-end crashes.
The agency ultimately found that the fuel tanks on 1993 to 2004 Grand Cherokees and 2002 to 2007 Liberty SUVs — which are mounted behind the rear axle — are significantly more likely to leak and cause fires than those on comparable vehicles.
Its analysis found that vehicles such as the Toyota 4Runner, for example, were involved in similar fatal fires at only about one-fifth the rate as the Grand Cherokee.
via Chrysler defies request for Jeep fuel tank recall – latimes.com.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: bicycle, bike, bike share, biking, cycling infrastructure, Friedersdorf, NYC, Rabinowitz, urban cycling, WSJ
That’s right, Friedersdorf.
There is no one in America who objects more consistently than me to Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s initiatives: This is a man who favors stop-and-frisk, racially profiling and spying on innocent Muslims, restricting the size of soda New Yorkers can buy, salt limits, a trans-fat ban, and a pervasive surveillance state. Left up to me, no one like Bloomberg would ever exercise political power. My disdain for his paternalism and disregard for civil liberties is what inclines me to defend his bike initiative. It is the least “totalitarian” major initiative that Bloomberg has undertaken, yet is denounced with some of the strongest language. If the critics were merely expressing their personal displeasure at the prospect of cities better suited to bike travel (or doubts about the efficacy of a particular policy aimed at making cities more bike friendly) that would be fine. Instead they co-opt the language of freedom and oppression, as if orienting cities toward automobiles is natural and libertarian, while bike shares and bike lanes are harbingers of tyranny.
That is vapid, paranoid, philosophically incoherent nonsense. By frivolously trafficking in it, I fear that Rabinowitz and friends will diminish all warnings about liberty and government overreach. Even the boy who cried wolf was invoking the specter of an actually frightening creature.
via The Paranoid Style in Bicycle Politics: A Bicoastal Freak-Out – Conor Friedersdorf – The Atlantic.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: bicycling, bike commuting, Books, Robert Hurst, urban cycling
The Bicycle Commuter’s Handbook by Robert Hurst
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Big Wig, Bradley Wiggins, Dave Brailsford, Froome, TDF, Team Sky, Tour de France, wiggin'
Big disappointment, a major high drama showdown between Big Wig and Froome was brewing.
“With illness, injury and treatment Brad has gone past the point where he can be ready for the Tour,” Sky boss Dave Brailsford said in a team statement. “It’s a big loss but, given these circumstances, we won’t consider him for selection.”
[…]
Wiggins said it was a “huge disappointment not to make the Tour.”
“I desperately wanted be there, for the team and for all the fans along the way — but it’s not going to happen,” Wiggins said. “I can’t train the way I need to train and I’m not going to be ready. Once you accept that, it’s almost a relief not having to worry about the injury and the race against time.
via Bradley Wiggins ruled out of the Tour de France.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: bicycling, bicycling advocacy, Cyclist's Manifesto, EVs, evworld, history of bicycling, Prius, urban cycling, urban mobility, Viet Cong, women's liberation
I appreciate the shout out from evworld.com, but fear what might happen when they reach the Prius chapter.
Writing about the “simple fun” of riding a bicycle in “The Cyclist’s Manifesto,” Robert Hurst put the technology in historical perspective, stating:
“Fun is apolitical. Fun has no agenda, other than to make you smile. And yet even the person who climbs onto a bike for the simple purpose of having fun or getting a whiff of fresh air will be saddled with the baggage of history, accompanied by a cloud of suspicion hanging around a machine that has at various times been intimately associated with women’s liberation, white power, political sneakiness, Asian communism, sabotage and spying and other rebel mischief, the Viet Cong, European socialism, illegal immigration, serial drunk drivers, anarchy, privilege, anti-car fanaticism, and multiple manifestations of youthful antiestablishment activities. This mishmash of historical symbolism is now woven into the collective subconscious of the nation. The bicycle is loaded.”
Until reading “Manifesto,” I had no idea that such an elegant and efficient machine carried so much historical baggage from across such a wide political and philosophical spectrum, from revolutionary communism to the epitome of capitalism, Henry Ford, himself, whose first ‘automobile’, the Quadracycle,’ was built largely from repurposed bicycle parts.
via Seven Solid Reasons Conservatives Should Love Bicycles : URBAN MOBILITY ON EVWORLD.COM.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: bicycle, bicycling, bike rental, bike share, Citi, Citi Bike, Citibank, Citibike, end of the world, helmet, helmets, New York, New Yorker Magazine, NYC, slow rollout, stationary bicycle, transportation, urban cycling
Painfully slow rollout of NYC’s Citibike rental scheme is here, maybe. Lock up your daughters!
Interesting the artist put a helmet on the outside rider. Wonder if he/she was told to do that.
via http://publicbikeshare.com/2013/05/28/public-bike-share-a-picture-says-1000-words/
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: auto bailout, auto subsidies, bailouts, battery, Better Place, electric hansom cabs, electric vehicles, EV, Evan Thornley, Fiat, hansom cabs, Maxim, NYC, Obama, phev, Pope, Pope Manufacturing Company, Shai Agassi
I wrote a little about this company’s scheme for swappable batteries and recharging stations in The Cyclist’s Manifesto, the book I wanted to call 1000 M.P.G. Noted the similarity of their scheme to what was working in NYC in the 1890s with Pope’s electric hansom cabs.
Better Place was situating itself to capitalize on the eventual demise of gas guzzling auto companies. But when certain key gas guzzling car companies tried to go paws-up, Dr. Obama and Co. stepped in and — Clear! — hit ’em with the paddles. Priorities.
FORTUNE — Electric car company Better Place is planning to file for bankruptcy within the next several days, Fortune has learned.
The move will come seven months after the ouster of charismatic founder Shai Agassi, and five months after his successor — Evan Thornley, CEO of Better Place Australia — also departed.
via Exclusive: Better Place to file for bankruptcy – The Term Sheet: Fortune's deals blogTerm Sheet.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: deepwater drilling, EIA, fracking, IEA, liquid fuel production, oil price, oil price predictions, oil production, Peak Demand, peak oil, refinery gain, shale oil, tight gas, tight oil
Via Kurt Cobb in the CS Monitor:
Back in the year 2000, the IEA divined that by 2010, liquid fuel production worldwide would reach 95.8 million barrels per day (mbpd). The actual 2010 number was 87.1 mbpd. The agency further forecast an average daily oil price of $28.25 per barrel (adjusted for inflation). The actual average daily price of oil traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange in 2010 was $79.61
[…]
So, what made the IEA so sanguine about oil supply growth in the year 2000? It cited the revolution taking place in deepwater drilling technology which was expected to allow the extraction of oil supplies ample for the world’s needs for decades to come. But, deepwater drilling has turned out to be more challenging than anticipated and has not produced the bounty the IEA imagined it would. …
via When oil forecasts get it wrong – CSMonitor.com.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: air cargo, air traffic, air travel, aviation, economic activity, economics, energy, jet fuel, peak oil, recession, transportation
Trending down.
Via Macronomics:
Macronomics: Air Traffic is pointing to additional economic activity weakness.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Art of Mountain Biking, babyhead, berm, cross country, enduro, Hurst, mountain bike, mountain biking, MTB, Robert Hurst, rock garden, singletrack, Specialized, XC
BUY IT NOW: AMAZON
Via Velonews: Armstrong, Vaughters talking about moving cycling forward.
uh huh
Moving cycling forward? Or, with their mutual everybody-quit-doping-in-2006 tall tale, consigning a new generation of young riders to the hell of having to take all the latest products and lie about it?
liked both of these guys a lot more when they were pedaling more and talking less.
Filed under: Bike of the Day | Tags: apehangers, bicycle, cruiser bike, cycling, Schwinn, urban cycling
Cruiser style frame, apehanger bars and 10 speeds.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: bicycling safety, Boulder, cycling accidents, Lyons, Patrick Ward, Van Duym, vehicular homicide
Turns out the drunk who ran over and killed Michel Van Duym had a real psychological problem with cyclists. Looks real bad.
LYONS – The driver facing charges in a crash over the weekend that killed a bicyclist in Lyons spoke out against cyclists at a series of public meetings in 2010.Catherine Olguin with the Boulder County District Attorneys Office says Patrick Ward is due in court Thursday at 2 p.m.Deputies arrested Ward Saturday afternoon in Lyons on eight charges, including vehicular homicide, for the death of a Boulder bicyclist.Ward lives in Lyons and has gone on the record in that town out at least six times to express his displeasure with the cyclists who share the road.Lyons resident Colleen Dickes understands the tension between people in cars, and people on bikes.”Theres a lot of cyclists,” Dickes said. “People are always trying to avoid them. I think there is always going to be a friction.”Patrick Ward knew that friction well.Lyons Town Administrator Victoria Simonsen confirmed to 9NEWS that Ward, 69, spoke at public meetings in March, April, May, June, and July of 2010 when the town was considering a 10-year plan that included promoting cycling in Lyons.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Bakken, crude oil, energy, IEA, IEA forecast, OECD, oil price predictions, oil supply, OPEC, peak oil, refining capacity, shale oil, tight oil
IEA… Not a good track record with the predictions. Doesn’t stop ’em from throwing out new crazy numbers every year.
While geopolitical risks abound, market fundamentals suggest a more comfortable global oil supply/demand balance over the next five years. The MTOMR forecasts North American supply to grow by 3.9 million barrels per day (mb/d) from 2012 to 2018, or nearly two-thirds of total forecast non-OPEC supply growth of 6 mb/d. World liquid production capacity is expected to grow by 8.4 mb/d – significantly faster than demand – which is projected to expand by 6.9 mb/d. Global refining capacity will post even steeper growth, surging by 9.5 mb/d, led by China and the Middle East.
via IEA – May:- Supply shock from North American oil rippling through global markets.
Industrialized Cyclist Notepad 