Do bike helmet laws discourage cycling? is a fascinating and intelligent conversation which starts with the assumption that encouraging bicycle usage is an important objective, for the type of multiple, overlapping outcomes which underly our policy views at Popular Logistics. Public health, energy consumption, carbon footprint, community, transportation, and even urban noise can be positively affected by increased bicycle use. Q, a brilliant CBC-produced show carried on many U.S. public radio station, shows that it’s not looking for simple answers or single-variable equations.
CBC’s “Q” on bicycle policy
Do bike helmet laws discourage cycling? is a fascinating and intelligent conversation which starts with the assumption that encouraging bicycle usage is an important objective, for the type of multiple, overlapping outcomes which underly our policy views at Popular Logistics. Public health, energy consumption, carbon footprint, community, transportation, and even urban noise can be positively affected by increased bicycle use. Q, a brilliant CBC-produced show carried on many U.S. public radio station, shows that it’s not looking for simple answers or single-variable equations.
Weapons-Grade Uranium essentially unguarded
Bush, Gore, Al Queda, and Sept. 11
The Sphere, by Fritz Koenig, in Battery Park. Image by L. Furman
Should the President have been able to foil the attacks of September 11?
Throughout the 1990’s we sustained:
- The 1990 assassination of Rabbi Meir Kahane in New York City,
- The 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center,
- The 1998 bombings of the Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania,
- The 2000 bombing of the U. S. S. Cole,
- And in 1999 we foiled Al Queda’s Millennium plot.
President Clinton and Vice President Gore knew that Osama bin Laden was a threat. They knew he had been trained by the CIA in the war in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union. They also knew that he financed and or masterminded the simultaneous attacks on U. S. embassies in Dar Es Salam, Tanzania and Nairobi, Kenya on August 7, 1998, and the October, 2000 attack on the U. S. S. Cole. And President Clinton told us that after his January 2001 inauguration he briefed President Bush on bin Laden.
Ahmadinejad Hints About Robert Levinson
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has implicitly admitted that Robert Levinson in in Iranian custody, while simultaneously evading personal responsibility by saying that he thought Mr. Levinson had been part of a prisoner exchange which had already been negotiated and concluded.
Here’s an excerpt from CBS’s coverage:
[P]ressed by Charlie Rose in an interview for “CBS This Morning,” Ahmadinejad did not deny Iran still has Levinson in its custody, and he hinted that there had been talks about a prisoner exchange. “I remember that last year Iranian and American intelligence groups had a meeting, but I haven’t followed up on it,” said the Iranian president. “I thought they’d come to some kind of an agreement.”
John Miller [CBS News senior correspondent a former FBI assistant director] says that, “tacit admission that he’s in their custody and that there have been talks,” in and of itself, “is a big step.” “I think that’s going to give a ray of hope to the family, too,” adds Miller.
From Mahmoud Ahmadinejad drops clue about Robert Levinson, ex-FBI agent who vanished 5 years ago in Iran – CBS News. There’s a link to video and more coverage on that page.
For more background, here’s are additional links on ABC News (From 12/9/11) Facebook, and Wikipedia.
Adventures in Driving – Hybrids
One day, back in 2009, while driving my ’99 Chevy Malibu home from classes in Marleboro College’s MBA in Managing for Sustainability, I set a target for my next car that it would get over 45 Miles Per Gallon. That basically means a hybrid like the Ford CMax (Edmunds / Ford) pictured above or one of the uber-efficient Volkswagon TDI Clean Diesel (news / autoblog / VW).
new coronavirus, SARS-like, kills 1 in Saudi Arabia, infects others
Occupy Wall Street, Obama, The American Jobs Act, Veterans & Patriots
The same way that they filibustered the The American Jobs Act of 2011, Senate Republicans filibustered the Veterans Jobs Corps Act of 2012. According to the Examiner, here,
the proposal failed 58-40, with most Republicans voting against it. Sixty votes were needed to overcome the procedural hurdle and push the bill toward final passage. Five Republicans – Sens. Scott Brown (Mass.), Susan Collins (Maine), Dean Heller (Nev.), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and Olympia Snowe (Maine) – voted with all 53 members of the Democratic Conference to sidestep the procedural roadblock.
I know the Republicans CLAIM to be “Fiscal Conservatives” and “Patriots” but the evidence shows that they are neither.
Continue reading
Occupy Wall Street – On Taxes
“Taxes are the price we pay for civilization.” – Oliver Wendell Holmes.
Progressive tax structures are not about punishing the rich. They are a recognition that wealthy people – like everyone else – derive benefits from being in society. Warren Buffett, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Michael Jordan, Oprah, for example, got rich because people buy their products or watched them play basketball or on TV. Paris Hilton is wealthy because her great-grandfather built a successful business. Their successes are wonderful. But their success should not require me to subsidize their lifestyles.
Andrew Frank & Laura Ingraham on Mitt Romney
It’s not just Obama v Romney – it’s Hope v Nope.
As Andrew Frank, of Baltimore, MD, put it, here,
It’s not Romney’s Blunders, It’s His Message.
New Milage Standards: 54.5 MPG by 2025. Meaningful & Terrific!
The Obama Administration issued final rules Tuesday 8/28/12 requiring joint mileage and carbon emissions rules for model years 2017 through 2025 that will eventually force automakers to meet a standard equivalent to 54.5 miles per gallon (news / White House / Announcement).
Back on July 7, 2009, when President Obama raised the CAFE standards from 27.5 mpg to 35.5 mpg, I wrote “CAFE Standards, Not Meaningless but Trivial,” I wrote, here,
Pres Obama has raised the CAFE standards from 27.5 mpg to 35.5 mpg, by 2016. Raising the CAFE standards to 35.5 mpg in 7 (or 26) years is not the change we need. It is very little, and very late. The standard for cars has been 27.5 mpg since 1990 (DieselNet). However, at least we are starting to move forward.
The standard of 54.5 MPG is Meaningful, Significant, and Terrific!
We also need a clean energy goals for the Efficient Use of Solar, Wind, Geothermal, Wave Power. 20% by 2020, and 100% by 2035!
Romney, the 47% and Outsourcing
We learned this week, thanks to Mother Jones, that Mitt Romney, speaking at a fundraising event on May 17, 2012, said,
- There are 47% of the people who will vote for the president no matter what.
- All right, there are 47% who are with him,
- who are dependent upon government,
- who believe that they are victims,
- who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them,
- who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it.
- That that’s an entitlement.
- And the government should give it to them.
- And they will vote for this president no matter what…
- These are people who pay no income tax…
- [M]y job is is not to worry about those people.
- I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.
But who are these 47%?
Why Invest in Infrastructure?
If you don’t invest in infrastructure, it fails. Remember New Orleans and Katrina? These pictures were not taken in New Orleans, Baghdad, Iraq, Falujah, Iraq, Hama, Syria or Afghanistan.
Image Copyright (C) L. Furman, 2011. Used with Permission
They were not taken in Gaza, Sudan, recently, Sarajevo in the 1990s, or Dresden, London Hiroshima, or Nagasaki, after WW II.
Copyright (C) 2011, L. J. Furman, All Rights Reserved
They were taken in New Jersey on the entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel on Nov. 23, 2011.
Register to Vote / Registrarse para votar
State by state information courtesy of NYU Brennan Center (here) & Thought Catalog (here). Verify that you submit suitable ID. Continue reading
Occupy Wall Street – On Energy
Monday, Sept. 17, was the First Anniversary of the “Occupy Wall Street” protests.
The protesters at Occupy are/were demonstrating against the current economic system and to make “Fracking” illegal. (See “Stop Spectra: Resist Fracking in NYC” or “City Limits, Occupy Wall Street, Opposes Fracking“) Energy Policy and Economics … the intersection of energy and economics in the bio-humanosphere – the memes we knit together at Popular Logistics.
My coverage of Occupy Wall Street started on Sept. 22, 2011, with “Protesting Marked Cards and a Stacked Deck.” Quoting Mr. Buffett’s op-ed in the NY Times, “Stop Coddling the Super-Rich,” and citing President Obama’s statement about the American Jobs Act, explained on White House . gov and Talking Points Memo, which Senate Republicans subsequently filibustered, I called for repeal of the “Bush Tax Cuts” on the wealthy, and for passage of Obama’s American Jobs, the so-called Buffett Rule.
I concluded,
Tax policy must be linked to fiscal policy. What we are doing today, Obama, Buffett, and the protesters would say, is using tax policy to make rich people more rich…. we should use tax policy to develop infrastructure… to build a 40 kilowatt photovoltaic solar array on each of the 92,000 public schools in the United States…. This would use tax revenues to pay for infrastructure upgrade – and tax revenues pay public schools electric bills. PV Solar systems provide energy without pollution, without toxic wastes, without greenhouse gases. And in the event of an emergency, if disconnected from the grid, we would have a network of 92,000 local emergency shelters with power during the day, when the sun is shining.