Blog Jones

A long, long time ago, back when Blog Jones was still on Blogger, I wrote a post about a group called Critical Mass. On the last Friday of every month, this group clogs the streets of major US cities with thousands and thousands of bicycles. See the Wikipedia entry to see what I mean.

Well, yesterday I received an email from a guy whom I quoted in my first post on the topic. Here’s what I quoted from him in my first entry:

“We rode in the street and used the streets as a place to be, and socialize, and celebrate rather than just a place to pass through on your way to someplace,” says Joel Pomerantz, one of the original San Francisco riders

Now I’ll quote his email, with appropriate commentary, of course:

I only today stumbled upon your interesting commentary, which echoes comments I have heard many times before. If you are being up front and truthful that it is the delay to drivers which troubles you about Critical Mass, then there is one slight logic glitch you might want to think about.

It’s rare that any car driver “caught” by Critical Mass is delayed more than a few minutes–putting the delay well within the range that any reasonable driver expects from “regular” car traffic jams when driving in a city at rush hour.

So, apparently, it’s OK to inconvenience thousands of drivers, as long as it’s only for a little while.

If on the other hand your objections about the ride are something else (hinted at by the disdain oozing from your phrase “the car is obviously a faster, more efficient way”) then maybe you should write a commentary directly on that point. I would love to see your reasoned evidence that speed and efficiency are what make the world a better place. Many people think so for various reasons, but judging by the surge in the bicycle’s popularity for transportation, it seems that in some circumstances many people would rather have two hours a month where calm prevails in public spaces usually overwhelmed by motor traffic.

What you don’t see is the distinct lack of calm on the faces of the drivers you’re inconveniencing.

The roads–at least the parts of the road where cars drive on–are not for socialization. They are for getting from once place to another as quickly as possible. You should stay out of the way of the delivery men who are trying to do an honest day’s work, the ambulances which trying to get the sick and the dying to the hospital, the policemen, who are trying to prevent crimes, and the regular folks, who just want to get home and relax after a difficult week’s work.

Yes, speed and efficiency make the world a better place. Absolutely. If you doubt that, look at the places in the world where efficiency is apparently irrelevant, like the vast majority of Latin America and Africa: The people there are dirt poor. By consequence, they are hungry, sick, and without the things we in the first world would consider necessities, like regular electricity and indoor plumbing. On the other hand, look at the countries in the first world: The peoples of America and Japan prize efficiency, and so they are healthy, wealthy, and full.

Further, when your transit times are lower, you can spend more time doing the things you love to do. If I’m held up in traffic for a half-hour because a swarm of cyclists won’t get out of my way, that’s half an hour I can’t spend with my family, on my computer, or doing any of the things I enjoy. It seems profoundly selfish to me that these cyclists are enjoying themselves at the expense of thousands of others enjoying themselves.

As I said in my previous post, socialize all you want. Celebrate bike riding. But have the civility to stay out of the way of people with more important things to do.

That didn’t take long. The city of Freeport (a most ironic name) has seized the opportunity offered to them by the supreme court to steal three properties from a couple of seafood restaurants to make room for a $8 million dollar private marina.

The rich guy wins. The poor guy gets screwed. Big surprise.

I wonder how many people are going to die as a result of this decision. Once all the legal options are gone to protect your property from theives, what choice do you have but to take up arms and defend it with violence?

Update: I may have been mistaken: The loser wasn’t poor:

Gore said Western Seafood’s 30,000-square-foot processing facility, which sits on the 300-by-60-foot tract, would be forced to close if the land were seized.

That facility earns about $40 million annually, and Western Seafood has been in business in Freeport since 1946, he said.

Neil Boortz says what I said in my last post, only better.

Another fundamental right died in the courts yesterday. You no longer have the right to keep your private property.

The Supreme Court voted 5-4 to allow local governments to seize citizens’ land to build… shopping malls.

Of course, they’ve been able to force citizens to sell steal citizens’ land to build things like highways for decades. But now they have been given the OK to steal land for private development.

If a county councilman decides that the county really needs a Wal-Mart in your neighborhood, he can bulldoze your house to make room for it. Oh he’ll pay you something for it–whatever he thinks it’s worth.

How can they possibly justify this from the Constitution? The Fifth Ammendment states:

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

Previously, public use has referred to government use like highways and water lines; now the definition has expanded to include private development, like hotels and shopping malls, if they’ll bring jobs and commerce to the area.

And what’s commerce? Well, as we learned a few weeks ago, interstate commerce means anything the government wants it to mean. When “marijuana that has never been bought or sold, that has never crossed state lines, and that has had no demonstrable effect on the national market for marijuana” can be called interstate commerce, then commerce, as a word, is utterly meaningless and pliable, adaptable to the schemes of any tiny tyrant.

I need to move out of the country before that becomes illegal.

Update: You know the worst part of this decision? Justice John Paul Stevens, the fool who wrote for the majority, said that local officials “know best” how to run your land. That’s right. You’re too stupid to know how to run your land the right way; you’ve got to let the government take it and give it to a company that’s obviously smarter than you are.

This is one of the tennets of a prominent political party. Can you guess which one?

We demand freedom of religion for all religious denominations within the state so long as they do not endanger its existence or oppose the moral senses…. [This party] as such advocates the standpoint of a positive Christianity without binding itself confessionally to any one denomination. It combats the…materialistic spirit within and around us, and is convinced that a lasting recovery of our nation can only succeed from within on the framework: common utility precedes individual utility.

No cheating!

(Via Dean’s World)

Let’s face it: Internet Explorer is terrible, bug-ridden software. Its security flaws are responsible for a large portion of the spyware and adware that can infest your computer and make it nearly unusable through slow-downs and an unbearable number of popups.

As these security flaws have gotten more and more media coverage, an alternative internet browser, Firefox, has become increasingly popular. Not only is Firefox more secure, but it also has more features like a built-in popup blocker, tabbed browsing, and a Google search bar built directly into the browser by default.

Firefox is a great browser, but let me show you some of the features of an even better browser: .

Those of you who use the Wordpress Default theme may have noticed a couple of new features: First off, there’s now a preview button, just like on my Starry Night theme. Thanks to Austin for helping me to figure out how to make the preview work properly with the default theme.

Also, I’ve added the Spell Checker button to the Wordpress Default theme.

I’ve also noticed that the Wordpress Default theme looks really, really bad in Internet Explorer. If you’re using IE, switch to another theme or switch to or Firefox.

Edit: Upon further review of this post–and believe me, there’s been a lot of review of this particular post–I have to say that my initial wording below was a lot stronger than it really should have been. I think the point was worth making, but that comments like “if preachers want to be taken seriously by people with critical thinking skills” were out of line.

If I offended anybody with those statements, I apologize. I did not mean to insult or tear down anybody by what I said.

There’s an old cliché, coined by some guy up at The Wilds, that has, like many of the sayings of Dr. Bob Senior and Dr. Bob Junior, attained functional equivalence with Scripture among many fundamentalists. Soon after the preacher has consulted the one verse that is the basis of his argument for the next half-hour, he’ll quote this saying:

Just two choices on the shelf:
Pleasing God or pleasing self

This statement is very catchy. Unfortunately, it’s also completely fallacious. It’s the perfect example of a false dichotomy: There are more options available than just pleasing God and self: You can also please other people, for example.

Think about that Extreme Makeover: Home Edition show: These guys come to some needy family and rebuild their houses for them. Are they doing it as a service to God? No. They’re doing it to help a family in need (and make a little money for Sears and ABC, but that’s beside the point). Is your average school teacher in it for the money? No, they’re trying to help kids reach their full potential.

Besides being a false dichotomy, it also implies a false choice: Pleasing God and pleasing self are not necessarily mutually exclusive options.

For example, the book of Proverbs states “Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing, and obtaineth favour of the LORD.” I should think that the man who finds himself a wife is at least as pleased as the Lord is with the idea.

In short, if preachers want to be taken seriously by people with critical thinking skills, they need to let the cliché go, no matter how catchy it is.

Once upon a time, there was a great show on TechTV called The Screen Savers. A group of guys–Leo Laporte, John C. Dvorak, Kevin Rose, Patrick Norton, Robert Heron, and Yoshi–talked about technology and helped people with their computer problems. It was the golden age of specialty cable! I guess. I never watched the show, but I heard good things about it.

Unfortunately, now I’ll never be able to see it. Another network, G4, bought TechTV, then later fired half of the cast of the Screen Savers and renamed it Attack of the Show. That’s right. Attack of the Show. Darkness overshadowed the airwaves.

But there is a new hope for us peasants: A new podcast called This Week in Tech. The same guys get together every Sunday evening (more or less) and do the same thing–talk about cool tech stuff again. The shows run about an hour each. Give it a shot!

(See also: Introduction to Podcasting.)

I love finding examples of consumer Christianity, that branch of Christianity dedicated to developing new Bible-themed products to make and sell. Here’s a great example: In-Souls Inspirational Scripture Shoe Inserts:

Here’s the official product description:

In-Souls™ inserts are designed to provide a tangible support to assist Christians to literally “walk in the word of the Lord.” Worn in the right shoe, each one provides a related scripture and affirmation. To enhance the spiritual walk with God, the inserts help one to “stand” on His Word, meditating on it day and night. Inserts may be alternated daily to help cultivate the word of God in your life. Look for other In-Souls sets to cover a variety of topics – from trust, obedience, patience and redemption to marriage, work and body image.

My only problem with this idea is that I kind of think the Bible deserves a little more respect than to be stuffed into your shoes. But I guess my wish was granted; Christians are getting more original after all.

Netpilot over at The Boileryard has a great overview of the historical arguments over separation of church & state. Here’s the short version:

Although the words “separation of church and state” do not appear in the Bill of Rights, a letter from Thomas Jefferson commenting on the Bill makes it clear that the first ammendment was intended to build a “wall of separation between church and state.”

Netpilot: “the question we should be debating is not if the ‘wall of separation’ to which Jefferson referred was intended to be built by the first amendment, but rather how high and thick should the wall be built.”

Unfortunately, this was a point of contention even in the days of the founding fathers. On the one side you had people like Samuel Adams, who believed that “that religious toleration should be extended to all Christians, with the exception of Catholics and Papists.” On the other side, you had people like Jefferson and Madison, who opposed the appointment of chaplains for the House and Senate.

It’s not like some judge just decided to start this debate in the 1970’s. The debate over separation of church and state has been going on for centuries.

Here ends my summary and starts my commentary: I think that it’s OK for politicians to discuss their own religious beliefs, as Bush does frequently. I also think that the ACLU needs to relax a little bit: Having a nativity scene on public land won’t hurt anybody.

On the other hand, the government needs to be careful to avoid even the appearance of supporting any particular religion. That’s why I think the ten commandments monument needed to come down. Can you imagine being a Muslim on trial, walking into the courtroom, and seeing the religious iconography of Christianity and Judaism on the wall? Would you feel like you were getting a fair trial?

Can you imagine the outcry if a public school teacher led her class every morning in a prayer to Krishna?

Can you imagine being told that you couldn’t teach your child your “non-mainstream” religion? Oh, wait….

Unfortunately, separation of church and state has been taken to the point of extremes in some cases. Students in public schools ought to be able to pray over their meals, for example. (I’ve been told they can’t; can any public school kids fill me in?) But at its heart, separation of church and state is wise and sensible public policy.