Bicycle inflation?
The NY Times—as part of their longtime fixation on Portland—has an article arguing that the price of bicycles is inflated in Portland. There definitely aren't easy deals there, but having now seen the $200 junk bikes that are for sale on the street in Williamsburg I think they are exaggerating. I'm pretty sure that a if they got a ZipCar and drove out to Beaverton they'd find all kinds of deals on jenky bikes.
But here's some of my thoughts (which you can also find on page five or so of the comments):
- Bikes in Phoenix and Austin are going to last a lot longer due to the difference in climate. Seattle and Portland get much more rain that'll rust bikes locked up outside.
- Having bought a bike from Costco back in the day I can tell you that it's either un-assembled or incorrectly assembled, and probably unsafe. Knowing that I'd send my friends to a bike shop.
- You're shopping in the summer. the worst time to buy a bike in portland is when the weather's nice. Wait until the week after the rain starts back up and you'll find a lot more deals—you'll also have a lot easier time finding places to lock your bike
Obama/Biden vs. McCain/Palin: November is coming
My mom forwarded this to me. I usually don't get too many of this type of email from other relatives since they're mostly republican--and I tend to reply back fact checking them. But it's interesting to me to see this type of stuff flying around from the dem side... and I agree with it completely.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Sacred Soaps <sacredsoaps@yahoo.com>
Date: Mon, Sep 22, 2008 at 10:54 AM
Subject: Obama/Biden vs. McCain/Palin: November is coming
To: My mom and 999 other people...
"I'm a little confused. Let me see if I have this straight...
* If you grow up in Hawaii, raised by your grandparents, you're "exotic, different."
* Grow up in Alaska eating moose burgers, a quintessential American story.
* If your name is Barack you're a radical, unpatriotic Muslim.
* Name your kids Willow, Trig and Track, and you're a maverick.
* Graduate from Harvard law School and be President of the Law Review, and you are unstable.
* Attend 5 different small colleges in 6 years before graduating, you're well grounded.
* If you spend 3 years as a community organizer, create a voter registration drive that registers 150,000 new voters, spend 12 years as a Constitutional Law professor, spend 8 years as a State Senator representing a district with over 750,000 people, become chairman of the state Senate's Health and Human Services committee, spend 4 years in the United States Senate representing a state of 13 million people while sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the Foreign Affairs, Environment and Public Works and Veteran's Affairs committees, you don't have any real leadership experience.
* If your total resume is: local weather girl, 4 years on the city council and 6 years as the mayor of a town with less than 7,000 people, 20 months as the governor of a state with only 650,000 people, then you're qualified to become the country's second highest ranking executive.
* If you have been married to the same woman for 19 years while raising 2 daughters, all within Protestant churches, you're not a real Christian.
* If you cheated on your first wife with a rich heiress, and left your disfigured wife and married the heiress the next month, you're a Christian.
* If you teach responsible, age appropriate sex education, including the proper use of birth control, you are eroding the fiber of society.
* If, while governor, you staunchly advocate abstinence only, with no other option-even in the case of incest or rape, in sex education in your state's school system while your unwed teen daughter ends up pregnant, you're very responsible.
* If your wife is a Harvard graduate lawyer who gave up a position in a prestigious law firm to work for the betterment of her inner city community, then gave that up to raise a family, your family's values don't represent America's.
* If your husband is nicknamed "First Dude," with at least one DUI conviction and no college education, who didn't register to vote until age 25 and once was a member of a group that advocated the secession of Alaska from the USA, your family is extremely admirable.
OK, it's all much clearer now.
Jack Weingarten"News round up
I don't post news items like I used to a few years back but there are two things in the news today that I've got to comment on.
The first is GM's announcement that they're closing four North American plants manufacturing SUVs and looking at selling the Hummer brand so they can focus instead on more fuel efficient cars. The NY Times has a pretty good article on it but the GLARING OMISSION is that they don't mention anything about the CAFE standards. The American auto industry and their Republican lackeys have been fighting increases in the fuel efficiency since 1999. It seems like the US auto execs were the only people who didn't see Peak Oil and the end of the SUV coming... sure they'll tell you they've got hybrid SUVs the only problem that you can't buy them, they're just a PR device. I'd love to see some shareholder action to clean house and put some execs in place that have half a clue.
The second is Hillary and her Terminator impression. I'd defended her right to stay in the race until all the states had voted--even though it was obvious back in February that she wasn't going to be the nominee. But as of tonite this has gotten silly. Obama now has the delegates but she still can't quite let go and concede. Shit, I'll donate $20 to help pay off her campaign debts if she throws in the towel this week.
About that experience thing...
"There was a saying around the White House that if a place was too small, too poor, or too dangerous, the President couldn't go, so send the First Lady."
And Sinbad... and Sheryl Crow... and the First Daughter? Yeah, let's talk about experience and judgement some more.
Pour one out for Steve Gilliard
I was shocked to read today that Steve Gilliard, author of The News Blog, my favorite blogs for the past few years died on Saturday. He did an amazing job summarizing the news of the day with biting commentary. Before I found his site, I'd do several hours of news surfing each day. Once I started following it, I didn't really bother surfing news anymore, if Steve didn't post about it, it probably wasn't that interesting. Since he fell ill, I've pretty much stopped reading the news. Sure I'll take a look at Daily Kos every now and then but without Steve's wonderful commentary, it's just not worth the time. My deepest condolences to his family and all his other readers.
