Month: April 2007

A reader writes:

Agree with you entirely about the perils of biking as transportation in a major city. At least DC is relatively bike friendly, I average about one near miss a week in Dallas, and the vast majority of my commute is on a limited access bike path, so it’s probably about one near miss every 10 miles. Like you, I’ve been doored (and broken a rib), have lost a couple of wheels to people who suddenly turn into me, and have a twelve stitch scar on my head from some jerk that ran a red light (that did convince me of the wisdom of the helmet).

I’ll admit to frequently having a bad attitude when I ride, but it’s defense, not offense.

As a side note, Lifson’s complaint about Critical Mass is just wrong. He claims it just assembles randomly at any possible time. Anyone who’s ridden in a major metro area knows that it always assembles on the last Friday of the month at around 6. It’s eminently avoidable, just like we bikers avoid all kinds of intersections because they’re dangerous. The only reason so many drivers get caught is because they assume they own the road and are totally oblivious toward anyone else on those roads. If you’ve ridden in a Critical Mass (and if you haven’t, you should), you know that it’s totally liberating to be, even for an hour, the dominant form of transportation on city streets.

On the other hand:

Fitchburg, Massachusetts, 9 am today.

A review by a friend.

An orgy of blog video narcissism! And why the hell not? Althouse vlogs herself watching Idol. Scott McLemee vlogs himself watching Althouse vlog herself. Tim Lambert vlogs his dog watching vlogs. Matt Yglesias produces a critique of pure vlogging. Julian Sanchez vlogs vlogs. Megan resists. Drum dissents. Garance agrees with Drum. Drezner tweaks. I thank God for interns.

Now go vlog yourself.

Or lack of it. A dispatch from the car bumper-sticker wars.

I can’t see how the recent fiasco with Iran can be viewed as anything else. The sailors were obviously unprepared for captivity, insufficiently defended and hapless propaganda tools for Ahmadinejad. At the same time, after they had been captured, what option did Blair really have? The UN would not have supported ratcheting up confrontation with Iran; the EU left Britain in the lurch; the war in Iraq is deeply unpopular in Britain and full-scale confrontation with Iran right now would have prompted a collapse in the British government. I’m dubious of Blair’s statement that the release was accomplished

"without any deal, without any negotiation, without any side agreement of any nature whatsoever,"

but I cannot know for sure. What we can know is that Iran is currently proving to the world just how much it has gained by the disaster of the Bush Iraq policy. Tehran knows that Washington cannot go to war with Iran because the American people and the Congress will oppose it. Tehran also knows that America is stuck in Iraq, prey to every bomb Iran can throw at it and to Shiite militias over which Iran has considerable sway. This is a microcosm of where we are. And for the time being, diplomacy is our only effective way forward.

(Photo: Bertrand Langlois/AFP/Getty.)

"Imbeciles like Ann Coulter play to the basest instincts of the conservative movement to give the president a blank check to grab whatever power he wishes… Neither party has shown the courage to assert the power of Congress as a coequal branch of government. Congress should be telling the president it’s not OK to detain people without trials, to grab people off the streets and ‘render’ them to other countries to be tortured, to listen in to our telephone conversations, and to issue signing statements that nullify laws he doesn’t like," – Bruce Fein, of the Liberty Coalition. Vive la resistance.

Zogby digs deeper.

And other proven stereotypes.

"In an interview with ABC radio, Vice President Cheney said he did not know if the sailors had been released because of a quid pro quo arrangement," – New York Sun. Did not know?