Rob Anderson gets it wrong again

At 12:12 PM, Rob Anderson said...
So why aren't more black people riding bikes?

AIG - r00ling angle shot attempt by Freshman Congressman Gary Peters

From Daily Kos

Congressman Peters’ bill would create a 60 percent surtax on bonuses over $10,000 to any company in which the U.S. government has a 79 percent or greater equity stake in the company. Currently, AIG is the only company that meets this threshold. The 60 percent surtax would be added to the normal income tax rate, meaning that bonuses received this year by AIG executives paying the top 35 percent tax rate would be taxed at 95 percent. The remaining 5 percent would likely be paid in state and local taxes, so taxpayers would fully recover any AIG bonuses paid in 2009.

Fine - go ahead and pay the bonuses. We'll just take it back April 15. Amusing.

I'm guessing David Patterson loves this idea, it would be an extra $5M or so to New York...

Cyclist shot by paintball on Mines Road - perps arrested

Reprinted from Cycletrons mailing list without permission, I am trying
to figure out contact information. OK, that's a total copout but this
mail has gone viral, I'm a publicity whore, and this is a pretty good story.

If I have it right the Cycletrons are guys who work at Lawrence Livermore
and do some solid hardmen rides at lunch. LLNL is in some great cycling
terrain which includes Mines Road. Mines Road, as Patrick indicates, has
one way in and not many ways out - if you don't want to go back through
Livermore, you have to go to Patterson or San Jose - 45 twisty miles or so
later. Not the best place to go postal if you don't want to get caught.

Yesterday evening (about 5:30 pm), while cycling up Mines road just
south of Tesla Rd I was shot (with paint gun) by a passing vehicle. At
first I thought it might have been a badly timed rock coming off the
vehicle, then I felt the burning sensation, then noticed passengers in
he passing white mustang pop their heads back up from the back seat
and realized I'd been shot. I wasn't sure if it was a pellet gun or bb
gun. I immediately flagged down the next vehicle and asked if they
could get the license number of the vehicle but the mustang had
already gone to warp speed so the chances were slim. I did not have my
phone. A few minutes later, when the shock wore off, I realized the
weapon was most likely a paint gun (sound was familiar from my one
experience with that 'sport'). Fortunately it only grazed my back and
was not a direct hit (no paint).
This kind of e-mail usually ends with 'be on the lookout for...'

....not this time!

Remember, I was going south on Mines. There are not too many escape
routes for the average vehicle.

I continued on my ride eventually arriving at the Del Valle kiosk.
Did you see a white mustang come though here in the last half hour
I asked the attendant. sure did was his reply.

That's when the story turns to the cyclist favor.

Three troupers, a bunch of park rangers, and a patrol helicopter
narrowed the search quickly.

They found the teenagers (white mustang and friends in white pickup) on
the southwest end of the lake, took significant video footage of them
from the air engaging a number of activities to warrant trouble in
court, surrounded them and placed them under arrest in the middle of
the grass field in their wet clothing on a cold evening extracting a
full confession.

Turns out at least one of the teenagers actually lives on Collier
Canyon Rd. He asked the officer if he could apologize to me in person.
When he did, I shared with him that I have kids his age and I tried to
get him to visualize what he would do if one of my kids had shot his
mom or dad while they were out riding their bike trying to stay in
shape.

My hope is that this experience for this group of teenagers serves to
at least reduce the number of aggressive vehicles out there by one
white mustang and one extended cab white pickup, especially in the area
of Collier Canyon and Del Valle/Mines Rd.

-Patrick Dempsey

Home Gardening Boom

I'm up at Healdsburg today, and in between gardneing stints I ran across this article - Dollars from dirt: Economy spurs home garden boom

"People's home grocery budget got absolutely shredded and now we've seen just this dramatic increase in the demand for our vegetable seeds. We're selling out," said George Ball, CEO of Burpee Seeds, the largest mail-order seed company in the U.S. "I've never seen anything like it."

I'm certainly one of the Johnny come latelies in this regard - of course we just got our plot here in Healdsburg this year and the raised beds and fruit trees that come with it. But now I've extended this to growing cilantro, dill, and arugula in our yard and patio in SF. I got sick of buying huge bunches of Cilantro for two-three bucks to use a couple of sprigs, and then send the rest off to compost, instead of picking what I need grown from a penny or two of seeds. While I read a lot of info about things you "must do" to get this stuff right, even screwing things up a bit you can get some production.

Off to the garden. Today - after some serious weeding and cutting back the remains of November's planting, I'll be putting in some carrots, cilantro, and dill. Maybe some more after a trip to the Healdsburg Nursery - one of my favorite places on earth.

Scoreboard from November. Everything grew like crazy in January when it was so hot, and crops that were supposed to be coming out now, are bolted and gone. We did get 2 arugula harvests by January, but it was bolted and I cut it all the way back. Between then (mid Jan) and now, the cut back arugula grew back so fast it is going to seed again. I left one plant the finish seeding in hopes it will re-seed, of course the plants I cut back may come back AGAIN. Arugula is like a weed!

We harvested some great mixed lettuces last night. The spinach we harvested in January grew back beyond usefulness. The Broccoli probably hit perfection in late February but was now in flower completely! Doh. We have 3-4 cabbages to harvest now and I'll make some coleslaw. And the parseley and Oregano plants are in perfect condition right now and I'll be harvesting them by cutting them back so we can make something using them this week.

Even a hack like me can have fun with this stuff, and save a few bucks if you have the place to plant. For herbs like cilantro this could even be your windowsill.

Fixes proposed for Bike Commuter Benefit

Per Bike Portland

According to a one-pager about the new resolution, Blumenauer’s office says that the language to allow combining of transit and bike benefits is needed because many commuters “use multiple forms of transportation in their journeys,” and that, by allowing employees to choose only one commuter benefit to use, “the program does not currently recognize these realities.”

Sneaking in this low snark post in tribute to the following tweet.

from Cyclelicious

I'm starting to get nasty again in my blog and email discussions. Time to relax, chill, and go for a bike ride.
about 1 hour ago from web

OH NOES! Glenn Beck and Chuck Norris are going to surround me FRIDAY.

As I post this, it is sixteen hours, 4 minutes, and 7 seconds until I and the rest of the liberal fools will be SURROUNDED by Glenn Beck! Run and Hide!

This is rich.

"Do you believe that your voice isn’t loud enough to be heard above the noise anymore?" - god knows they are trying. Beck may not be blessed with a lot of intelligence but he is blessed with some major shouting pipes (and there is always the possibilty he is meta-intelligent, acting dumb to make a crapload of money from morons).

Anyway, we are about to be surrounded apparently. It's unclear exactly what that means, but if it is a literal interpretation then we might be ok, in that Obama won by six percentage points or so.

Beck has nine overriding principles for a good surrounder.

It's great stuff...

1. America is good.

OK, pretty much anyone can get on this bandwagon. For a long time the wingnuts tried to hijack the name of the country. Now, they LOST THE ELECTION in a landslide, but somehow the majority of Americans, who voted for the side that won, believe that America is bad. Seems to me that the wingnuts are the ones that think America is bad - because it elected a President they don't like. Newsflash - America is a Democracy and the fact that sometimes you don't win means that America is in fact good.

2. I believe in God and He is the Center of my Life.

I was raised Catholic. No priest ever molested me and my experience was pretty darn good. I benefitted a lot from listening to parables, it's made me a better person.
I also agree with Bill Maher that a great percentage of the really bad things that have happened in the world have happened due to organized religion, and that a lot of bible thumpers seem to have misread the majority of the Ten Commandments, so I don't appreciate them co-opting religion in order to spread fear and hatred. My belief runs on this line - a just God could care less about if you have faith, and cares very deeply how you treat others. Reciting a stack of psalms at the pearly gates shouldn't get you any extra credit.

3. I must always try to be a more honest person than I was yesterday.

I guess we don't have to worry about Dick Cheney SURROUNDING US.

4. The family is sacred. My spouse and I are the ultimate authority, not the government.

Or Rudy Guiliani. Or David Vitter. Or Larry Craig. Rush Limbaugh has been divorced twice.

5. If you break the law you pay the penalty. Justice is blind and no one is above it.

"Rush Limbaugh was singled out for prosecution because of who he is. We believe the state attorney's office is applying a double standard."

6. I have a right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, but there is no guarantee of equal results.

Especially if you are blue-collar but continue to vote against your own self-interests, or you are super-rich and can convince a bunch of wingnut blue-collar racists to vote against their own self-interests.

7. I work hard for what I have and I will share it with who I want to. Government cannot force me to be charitable.

Can I stop sharing any of my taxes with Caltrans?

8. It is not un-American for me to disagree with authority or to share my personal opinion.

Unless your opinion is that of a Democrat apparently. Or you participate in Critical Mass.

9. The government works for me. I do not answer to them, they answer to me.

This I agree with. At least since Jan 20, 2009.

nVidia making push for cycling commuters

My company, nVidia, has an initiative called "Visualize Green" going and solicits ideas from employees for green ideas - especially those that can save money. I just got an email with several suggestions for employees to this effect. It includes things like a "WattStopper" plug that you plug into your powerstrip and plug anything that isn't "fulltime on" - lamps, monitors, etc... into that and it will turn off if there is no sensor. I got an "A" grade for carrying around my own cup for the water fountain, I'm giving myself an "F" for not always taking a break and eating in the cafeteria, thus taking a compostable (which degrade, but nVidia is still trying to develop a program where we divert this stuff to compost) container instead of using a reusable ceramic plate. Good for my mind, environment, and the company's bottom line (of course we can then get into the endless debate on water use, but I digress). I get an "A+" in that I have never driven to work.


Anyway, I then wandered over to our "Visualize Green" website to check out the "In Action" intiatives started from employee ideas, and found this one...

Develop SAFE bike route from CalTrain station to Santa Clara offices
CalTrain goes right by our Santa Clara office, but getting from the train to the office (about a 2.2-mile ride) on a bike is a death-defying experience. The shuttle service is too infrequent to be practical, such as when working late. The bike route up Kifer Rd and up Walsh, is totally un-safe. There is no bike lane, despte the fact that Kifer /Walsh is very wide (5 lanes with raised sidewalks on both sides -- see google street view), and there is plenty of room for an ample bike path. Nvidia should petition the Santa Clara government, and offer to sponsor creation of a bike lane on Kifer / Walsh. Perhaps Intel could be persuaded to contribute, since it also has offices along the route.

Jenga! Corporate push for better cycling infrastructure! Very nice. While I don't really consider this chunk of road as "death-defying" (it definitely is not "Where I will get run over") there is no legitimate need for two lanes in each direction plus a middle turn lane. Sunnyvale modified a similar stretch of road on Evelyn, surely Santa Clara can do the same here.

Pretty cool. nVidia has a lot of bike commuters, and is fairly supportive (bike lockers, showers/etc...), for a company in a location that is regarded as somewhat bike scary (about half the time my entire commute route from work to train station is on roads with 55 MPH speed limits, San Tomas and Central expressways. I like those roads but it's not for everyone).