November 7, 2009 archive

Weekend Bike Blogging: Bike Boxes I Can Believe In

In the store, or at the airport, a “bike box” is a box that is supposed to have a bike inside of it.

However, at an intersection, a “bike box” is when you make a space at an intersection ahead of the “traffic stop here” line. They are often combined, as in the picture, with a “protected by paint and optimism” bike lane. In some cases for traffic lights that are tripped by stopped vehicle detectors, as in the YouTube clip below, they include a more sensitive stopped bike detectors in the bike box, so that the sensitivity of the regular vehicle detector does not have to be adjusted.

Looking at the overall concept, as John Allen does in A LOOK INTO THE “BIKE BOX”, this is yet another case of, probably subconscious “if only we could kill off these cyclists we wouldn’t have to worry about them” thinking by traffic planners.

One thing the bike box does is amplify the encouragement of the regular “protected by paint”, aka “kill the cyclist”, bike lane to pass stopped motor vehicles on their right side. This is a practice that you can get away with day after day, but sooner or later you are going to end up trying to go straight when a car is trying to turn. And given the fact that the car is risking its paint job and you are risking an extended stay in the hospital, that is a monumentally stupid habit to pick up. Its bad enough that “protected by paint” bike lanes encourage this habit – the “protected by paint with a prize at the end” is even worse.

Weekend News Digest

Weekend News Digest is an Open Thread

Now with U.S. News.  33 Story Final.

From Yahoo News Top Stories

1 G20 wants ‘ambitious’ Copenhagen talks, but gives no figures

by Katherine Haddon, AFP

16 mins ago

ST ANDREWS, Scotland (AFP) – G20 countries committed to work for an “ambitious outcome” at next month’s vital UN climate change conference after meeting Saturday, but fell short of agreeing a figure on climate funding.

Finance ministers from leading developed and emerging economies also said they would keep economic policy support in place in the face of “uneven” recovery.

“We are not out of the woods yet and we need to maintain the measures we have taken,” said Alistair Darling, finance minister of host country Britain after the meeting in St Andrews.

House of Representatives SHAMES itself UPDATED

House Shames Itself on Goldstone Report

Do you even know what the Goldstone Report is?    Ring any bells?   Have you heard the Corporate Media even mention it in the last few days?   Maybe?   Barely?   Sorta?  

Gotta love how this story is already down the Memory Hole, after barely any mention in the press WHATSOEVER.

Our beloved House of Representatives passed a resolution by a nearly 10-1 margin denouncing The Goldstone Report, which was issued by the United Nations and basically charged the state of Israel with WAR CRIMES in its brutal and inhuman attack on the Gaza Strip last year.


Shame on the House of Representatives, and on the Democratic leadership of the House, for pushing through a resolution once again blindly taking the side of Israeli aggression.

I’m referring to the vote on Tuesday, by a lopsided 344-to-36 margin*, to condemn the Goldstone report on Gaza.

That report, by South African jurist Richard Goldstone for the UN, showed that both Israel and Hamas had committed war crimes in the lead-up to and during Israel’s invasion of Gaza almost a year ago. (To read the executive summary, click here)

It noted that Israel deliberately attacked civilian targets, and did not take sufficient action to minimize civilian loss of life. For instance, it found that Israel even refused to allow the evacuation of the injured by ambulance.

The report also condemned Hamas for its rocket attacks into Israel, which the report said were designed to create terror.

Even as the U.N. was about to consider the report, the House measure called it “irredeemably biased and unworthy of further consideration or legitimacy.” And it urged the Obama Administration to “strongly and unequivocally oppose” any discussion of it at the UN.

This reflexive attitude that Israel can do no wrong is morally bankrupt and exceedingly unhelpful in resolving, in a just manner, the conflict between Israel and Palestinians.

If you were paying any attention whatsoever, it is quite clear that Israel did, in fact, commit war crimes, and in no way can what they did be construed as “defending themselves.”

Yet our House of Representatives blindly sides with this tiny, belligerent, racist war-criminal state.  

Why?  

I’ve been trying to figure out for a while now why the United States blindly supports the most fascist and peace-threatening regime in the Western World, the state of Israel.   What does the United States get out of the deal?   It sure as hell isn’t about “Democracy”.   The United States doesn’t give a rats ass about Democracy in any other country, no in any way shape or form.   Just look at our support of the totalitarian, boiling-people-alive country of Uzbekistan for one despicable instance.

It might be about sharing intelligence and resources for covert activities and blackops, but the U.S. does that with other countries as well, such as Turkey, without such a blatant in-your-face disregard for human rights.    

Great Wide Open Thread

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The Anti-Abortion Amendment Passes the House

The Stupak anti-Abortion Amendment to HR 3200 has passed the house. This amendment was supported by the Conference of Catholics Bishops who demanded it be included. The Catholic Church has a greater say in Congress that do American Women.  

Stupak: Lip stick on a Democrat

PhotobucketInstead of real health care reform (Medicare for all, everyone in and everyone pays), the health care bills in the House and the Senate are just expanded Medicaid with a public option that isn’t an option to the public at all.  Thanks to Stupak, the taxpayers will pay for prayer therapy and Viagra while restricting payments for abortions.  Apparently Stupak has no problem with killing 45,000 born babies and their parents each year.

Like the bank bailouts and Medicare Part D, Democratic health care reform is just another corporate rip off of the middle class; and for this privilege, they cut Medicare benefits and raised Medicare’s monthly premiums.  So much for no increases to people who make fewer than 250K a year.  

With Democrats like Stupak in Washington, it really doesn’t matter which party wins election because Republicans and religious zealots like Stupak win either way.  The Democratic health care reform bills are “like putting whip cream on a turd”, to quote a local official in the newspaper on a totally different subject,.  

The do nothing Democrats will pass anything, declare victory, and expect applause.   Maybe if we clap hard enough, we can make them all disappear.  

Tancredo Gets ‘Punched In The Mouth’, Runs Away Crying

Muriel Kane had the story at RawStory Friday night:

Former Republican Congressman Tom Tancredo attempted to argue against Democratic plans for health care reform on Friday by claiming veterans were dissatisfied with their government-run health care. He was confronted by blogger Markos Moutlitsas, who unlike Tancredo is a veteran himself, and reacted by stalking off the set of MSNBC’s The Ed Show where both men were guests.

Tancredo had begun by pointing to what he sees as problems with the Medicare system when host David Schuster interrupted him to ask, “So how about the Veterans Administration? The Veterans Administration is a single-payer system. … That’s also a threat to our freedom?”

“Every veterans groups I ever went and talked to complained about the Veterans Administration and the way it was a bureaucratically-run program that didn’t serve their needs,” Tancredo told Schuster. “They would much rather have vouchers that would allow them to go out and buy their insurance in a private marketplace.”

Moulitsas, founder of The Daily Kos, began laughing as Tancredo was speaking. “Tom, I’m a veteran,” he told Tancredo. “I did not get a deferment because I was too depressed to fight in a war that I supported in Vietnam.”

This was a slightly garbled reference to Tancredo’s having obtained 1-Y status in 1970, after his student deferments ran out, on the grounds that he had been “diagnosed with depression when he was 16 or 17 and received medication for five years for panic attacks and bouts of anxiety and depression.” Tancredo was 24 at the time.

Moulitsas and Tancredo then began speaking over one another, but Tancredo finally managed to say, “You’re not going to try to insult me that way and then pretend like we’re just going on and talking about that. You either apologize or I’m off.”

“I’m not pretending anything,” Moulitsas replied. “I told you straight up.” At that point, Tancredo ripped off his earpiece and microphone and left the set.

“This is a threat to Republicans,” Markos commented after Tancredo was gone. “They’ve built an entire ideology predicated on telling people that government does not work. They are terrified of government programs that work, because then people will realize that government’s not the enemy.”

Tancredo, who left Congress last winter after a failed bid for the Republican presidential nomination, is best known for his opposition to immigration, but he has also been identified with conservative causes in general.

Prior to his confrontation with Moutlitsas, Tancredo had agreed with House Minority Leader John Boehner’s claims that health care reform is a “very scary threat” and had insisted to Schuster that it was perfectly appropriate for health reform protesters to use an image of concentration camp victims at Dachau because when it comes to protests, “It’s all ugly.”

This video is from MSNBC’s The Ed Show, November 6, 2009.

Health Care Reform: Lip stick on a pig

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Instead of real health care reform (Medicare for all, everyone in and everyone pays) the Democratic health care bills in the House and the Senate are just expanded Medicaid with a public option that isn’t an option to the public at all.  Thanks to Stupak, they’ll pay for prayer therapy and Viagra while restricting payments for abortions.  Apparently Stupak has no problem with killing 45,000 born babies and their parents each year.

Like the bank bailouts and Medicare Part D, Democratic health care reform is just another corporate rip off of the middle class; and for this privilege, they cut Medicare benefits and raised Medicare’s monthly premiums.  So much for no increases to people who make fewer than 250K a year.  

With Democrats like Stupak in Washington, it really doesn’t matter which party wins election because Republicans and religious zealots like Stupak win either way.  Instead of lipstick on a pig, a local official in the local newspaper on a totally different subject said in this way: “it’s like putting whip cream on a turd”.  

They will pass a corporate health care bill, declare victory, and expect applause.   Maybe if we clap hard enough, we can make them all disappear.  

Docudharma Times Saturday November 7




Saturday’s Headlines:

Broader Measure of Unemployment Stands at 17.5%

‘I could hear the bullets going past me’

New study may deal final blow to acne drug Accutane

Last Taliban stronghold captured by Pakistan army

Dalai Lama caught in the middle as China-India border dispute comes to the boil

Security van driver leaps to celebrity after speeding off with £10m

Poland demands US troops be based on Polish soil

Lebanon government accord reached

Israel up in arms over weapons seizure

UN attempts to slow the new scramble for Africa

Madagascar rivals reach agreement

Honduras’ ousted leader declares pact ‘totally dead’

So much to talk about WITH UPDATE

I don’t know how these things work, but I have something that I really wanted to share here, but when I thought about it, I realized there’s really no better way to do this particular one than to simply “post the post” that I wanted to share.

I went looking for an open thread in which to post it and saw that, well, there wasn’t one.

So hey, I figured WTF, I’d start an open thread.  Why not?  

I’ll start with the thing I wanted to share.   I’ve recently bookmarked a site called “Naked Capitalism” and it has some pretty cool stuff in it.   Tonight I headed over there and found a link to this absolutely amazing post here:

Investor Psychology: Fear Turns People Into Sheep

I don’t even know what to do except tell you to read it.   It’s only a little bit about investing.   Mainly it’s about how the Powerful can exploit Fear.  


Sociologists from four major research institutions investigated why so many Americans believed that Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11, years after it became obvious that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11.

The researchers found, as described in an article in the journal Sociological Inquiry (and re-printed by Newsweek):

Many Americans felt an urgent need to seek justification for a war already in progress

Rather than search rationally for information that either confirms or disconfirms a particular belief, people actually seek out information that confirms what they already believe.

“For the most part people completely ignore contrary information.”

“The study demonstrates voters’ ability to develop elaborate rationalizations based on faulty information”

People get deeply attached to their beliefs, and form emotional attachments that get wrapped up in their personal identity and sense of morality, irrespective of the facts of the matter.

“We refer to this as ‘inferred justification, because for these voters, the sheer fact that we were engaged in war led to a post-hoc search for a justification for that war.

“People were basically making up justifications for the fact that we were at war”

“They wanted to believe in the link [between 9/11 and Iraq] because it helped them make sense of a current reality. So voters’ ability to develop elaborate rationalizations based on faulty information, whether we think that is good or bad for democratic practice, does at least demonstrate an impressive form of creativity.

An article yesterday in Alternet discussing the Sociological Inquiry article helps us to understand that the key to people’s active participation in searching for excuses for actions by the big boys is fear:

Subjects were presented during one-on-one interviews with a newspaper clip of this Bush quote: “This administration never said that the 9/11 attacks were orchestrated between Saddam and al-Qaeda.”

The Sept. 11 Commission, too, found no such link, the subjects were told.

“Well, I bet they say that the commission didn’t have any proof of it,” one subject responded, “but I guess we still can have our opinions and feel that way even though they say that.”

Reasoned another: “Saddam, I can’t judge if he did what he’s being accused of, but if Bush thinks he did it, then he did it.”

Others declined to engage the information at all. Most curious to the researchers were the respondents who reasoned that Saddam must have been connected to Sept. 11, because why else would the Bush Administration have gone to war in Iraq?

Fascinating stuff, with lots of links, and it provided me, finally, with a quote that I am now using as my comment signature:


Never let a serious crisis go to waste. What I mean by that is it’s an opportunity to do things you couldn’t do before.

How Bushian!   Do you know who said it?   Rahm Emanuel.

Deal Breaker

Jon Walker and David Dayen, both of Firedog Lake are reporting tonight that the Stupak Amendment which virtually bars BOTH Private Companies AND the Public Option from providing coverage for Reproductive Health Care for Women will receive a Floor Vote tomorrow in the House.

As Jon explains-

Stupak’s amendment, by not allowing a private insurance company to sell a policy to anyone if they receive any amount of affordability tax credits, would make it impossible for a private insurance plan that covers abortion to survive on the individual and small group market. Stupak has threatened to bring down the entire bill if he does not get his amendment. Rep. Stupak called all previous “compromises” that had been offered “unacceptable.”

As David reports-

The Democratic leadership is making a bet that, if it doesn’t pass, Stupak and his cadres will sign on to the bill (I highly doubt it; most of them are no votes on health care entirely); and if it does pass, pro-choice Democrats won’t sink the bill entirely (also, I highly doubt it). I’m a bit surprised that it’s come to this. Also, Stupak appeared to have lied in the Rules Committee about how the deal “fell apart,” since he got what he wanted.

This is an enormous bet, and not a well-designed one either, in my view. The Democratic Party will tomorrow give a minority of their caucus an opportunity to amend a large health care bill that would effectively ban abortion services coverage in the individual and small group insurance market, essentially telling private insurance companies what they cannot cover.

Quoting the Washington Post, David continues-

The amendment is expected to pass with the combined support of more than 40 anti-abortion Democrats and virtually every House Republican. That likelihood meant that leaders of the much larger group of Democrats who support abortion rights were not happy to learn of the deal.

“There will be no abortion, not just with public funds, but with private funds under the public option, and that’s not acceptable,” said Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.).

House leaders met with that bloc of Democrats late Friday to try to quell their frustration., but the agreement makes clear that they believe abortion-rights Democrats will find it difficult to vote against the health-care bill even with such a restriction attached to it.

As far as I’m concerned this is a flat out deal breaker.

Health Care Reform with the Stupak Amendment is not worth passing and I intend to call the House Leadership and my Congressperson tomorrow to express that opinion.

I urge you to do the same.

Late Night Karaoke

Open Thread

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