Archive for 2023

THEY THINK THE END JUSTIFIES THE MEANS:  “Cricket Morality”.

And they haven’t thought through that end very well.

IF THE HUGO BOSS FITS, WEAR IT: Not a dictator.

OPEN THREAD: Discuss ways to serve mankind.

MARK JUDGE: ‘America’s Front Porch:’ When Georgetown was Great.

Things began to change in Georgetown during the 1990s and beyond. “In the 2000’s if I recall correctly,” Julie Wilson told me, “companies were lured away to Virginia with financial incentives that diminished lunch business for the restaurants. I would bet my life that most small business owners did not own their buildings and suffered the rent increases that were occurring. The prosperity earned by those who helped create a vibrant scene, who stuck their necks out and took the risks, were usurped by the greed of landlords who saw bigger profit margins. Hence the arrival of big, brand named stores found in any mall in the USA. Many of them are adios now.”

What the landlords didn’t kill the pandemic hysterics did, undermining businesses in Georgetown and boarding up storefronts. Wilson recently paid a visit to Georgetown for the first time in years: “During my recent tour of Georgetown, I observed boarded up storefronts on every block, some left vacant for years. Does this appear business-friendly, prosperous and productive?” It does not.

Read the whole thing.

IT’S COME TO THIS: “Hate is dangerous, including against bicyclists” says op-ed in the San Fran Chronicle.

“Let’s have the bicyclists pay for bike lanes,” another commenter proposed (ignoring the fact that bicyclists do pay taxes and car-related fees and taxes do not cover the cost of maintaining public roads even though cars and trucks cause the great majority of road damage).

“Cyclists need to be more mindful,” tut-tutted another.

“I’ve witnessed bicyclists doing insanely dangerous things,” said yet another. “S.F. has one of the densest car populations in the country.
Riding bikes and scooters has got to be very risky.”

In all these comments, the implicit or explicit suggestion is that the bicyclist was basically at fault for riding on the street in the first place.

I’ve seen this knee-jerk reaction dozens of times: The bicyclist brought this on themselves, heedlessly and recklessly persisting in riding. Or this comment: “I question how one can value their life while literally putting themselves in voluntary danger. (San Francisco is among the) top 5 most dangerous cities to ride in. I’m so confused on how cyclists are on here accusing drivers for deliberately trying to kill them, then hop right back on the bike. If I thought someone was out to kill me, I would not continue to put myself in that position.”

A “ghost bike” memorial placed at the scene of Boyes’ death was vandalized — twice. Who does that? Someone emboldened to physically enact their hatred of bicyclists.

Just as those who tolerate or encourage racist, sexist and homophobic or transphobic comments on social media contribute to emboldening the people who attack and menace particular groups, people who parrot stereotypical comments about cyclists on social media subtly encourage those who would harm them — tearing down a memorial, close-passing a mother with a child on her bike or aggressively edging their car into a bike lane to menace and squeeze a bicyclist.

It was not until several years ago, when in my 70s I took up an electric bike as my primary form of transportation, that I began to realize how pervasive the hatred of bicyclists is among car drivers. At first, I thought it must be my inexperience that explained drivers cutting me off by turning directly into my path, honking impatiently and close-swerving around me when I slowed or moved out into the lane due to an obstacle ahead of me. They couldn’t know (or didn’t care) that I was being extra cautious to avoid being “doored” by someone parked alongside the bike lane in which I was riding. As I rode more, I saw drivers regularly do these things to other bicyclists, including everyone from kids to expert riders like Boyes.

Obligatory:

GOODER AND HARDER, CALIFORNIA: State Senator Tells Parents to Flee His Own State Amid Bill That Would Take Kids Away From Non-’Affirming’ Parents.

A California state senator told a gathered crowd of parents at the California Senate Judicial Committee to flee the state on June 13 during a hearing on a bill which would put parents who don’t affirm their child’s “gender transition” in danger of child abuse charges.

Sen. Scott Wilk, R-Santa Clarita, is one of the two lone Republicans on California’s Senate Judiciary Committee, and he has served in the California Legislature for 11 years. He was also the lone voice warning against language in AB 957, which a Democratic senator had amended on June 5 to rewrite the California Family Code to list “gender affirmation” alongside a child’s need for “health, safety, and welfare.”

I’m now in year 11 in the state legislature, and all the time we’re proposing policies to protect children. After 11 years, I’ve come to the conclusion that we need to start protecting parents.

That’s just not happening.

I’ve been here and witnessed a full frontal assault on charter schools, taking away parents’ choice in how their children are going to be educated to the detriment particularly of children of color.

In recent years, we have put government bureaucrats between parents, children, and doctors when it comes to medical care—and now we have [AB 957] where if a parent does not support the ideology of the government, [children are] going to be taken away from the home…

Wilk then targeted the statements of Democratic committee members who promised that AB 957 would only “give the judge more information.”

Don’t miss the video’s punchline: