The Daily Grind

Local TV channel 7 has posted a list of the 10 most dangerous places to drive in Denver:

The following is a list of the top 10 accident locations in Denver in 2009 according Denver police.

• I-25 at I-70 -- 195 crashes
• I-25 at Alameda Avenue -- 192 crashes
• I-25 at 6th Avenue -- 177 crashes
• I-25 at 20th Avenue -- 176 crashes
• I-25 at Santa Fe Drive -- 128 crashes
• I-70 at Quebec Street -- 118 crashes
• I-25 at Colfax Avenue -- 105 crashes
• I-25 at Hampden Avenue -- 93 crashes
• I-70 at Peoria Street -- 88 crashes
• I-70 at Quebec Street -- 84 crashes

This is per the Denver police, and I know it doesn't include a couple of places I know about just outside of Denver, notably I25 just north of town and I-25 just south of town and at Monument Hill.

Ignoring that, my daily commute takes me through locations 1 through 5 as well as #7. Both ways.

Oh well, a life unrisked, they say, is not worth living, so absent a straight razor to shave with, I drive to work on the municipal deathtraps, on a motorcycle. Uphill. Both ways. Barefoot. In the snow.

O.K. that last part may be stretching it a bit. #7 is under construction. I'd think that CDOT would post pretty pictures showing the smoothly flowing traffic that's sure to follow completion, but right now I'm going with a new football stadium and parking garage going up there.

#5 is under construction as well. It looks like the XL pipeline, carrying crude from Canada to Houston will be routed under the center median of I-25 at some point.

The European Debt Crisis

People in expensive suits have been traveling to expensive resorts to stand in front of expensive cameras and assure us that everything's under control and not to worry.

Other people, is more modest suits, have been opining from their workplaces that this is nonsense and that the whole house of cards will be coming down pretty shortly now.

The gist of the problem is that governments have been spending money they don't have and now find themselves in the position of being unable to pay it back. We peasants understand that this usually means that someone is going to lose a lot of money and as things roll down hill, we are likely to find ourselves near the bottom.

Here's an animation that seems to sum things up nicely:


The remaining question is what to do about this if only to avoid being at the bottom of the rubble heap when the dust settles.

H/T to Perry at Samizdata for this one.

Political Debate

Here's the Quote Of The Campaign, so far anyway:

At a million-dollar San Francisco fundraiser today, President Obama warned his recession-battered supporters that if he loses the 2012 election it could herald a new, painful era of self-reliance in America. - ABC News

So there's your choice, America; Four more years of the messiah-in-chief, or self reliance. What'll it be?

Local Issues, Prop 103

In the off-year elections coming up there is a big tax increase called Prop 103. The proponents assure us the money will go to education to keep the teachers and diversity administrators employed.

University profs are salivating at the thought of big bonuses in the face of 8.2% unemployment.

The revenues will go into the general fund where the legislature will earmark the extra revenue for education. I have no doubt that education will be served with this measure.

Vote for it. You'll learn.

Guns and Crime

Here is the results of a survey asking residents all across the country if they currently have a gun in, on, or about the premises, including your car. Now before you rush over to see how your state compares to the rest of the country, ask yourself, where would I be most likely to get shot? Now don't just think of the Michigan upper peninsula during deer season, think on average, all year round.

Now go look.

In general, it looks as though the harder the state government makes it to own a gun, the fewer people actually do. Now imagine you've gotten a phone call:

"Hi, I'm from the Nosy Survey Company. Do you have any guns around your house?"

You answer:"......"

Tranparency

Or how transparently you can run a cover-up.

The DOJ has proposed new federal regs, which don't require Congressional approval, which would allow beleaguered Federal agencies to respond to FOIA requests for documents by denying that the documents exist. Doesn't exactly inspire confidence, does it? But wait, there's more!

The doctrine apparently extends to even live people whom the phone answerers can describe as being in Iraq, or possibly on the moon. I suppose this is how the witless protection program works in Washington.

More Gun Control

One of my favorite observations is that the oldest gun control law in the U.S. came from Virginia Colony in 1644 and stated that "No person of color shall appear in public armed, even with a club."

Now in the course of tracking down my own ancestors I find one described as a Burgess from Henrico and Charles City, a justice from Charles City, a captain of militia, and a sheriff. Oh yes, and owner of an 850 acre tobacco plantation, all in Virginia colony.

All this in the time period from 1633 to about 1663. I'm almost afraid to dig any further lest I find out he wrote the damn thing. OTOH, the morality of owning slaves notwithstanding, the instinct for self-preservation is a strong one.

Robots

Visited MileHiCon last weekend where I saw the Critter Crunch, a contest of fighting robots. You remember the TV shows about that a few years back? They're gone, but the art goes on.

By now I've seen at least 3 levels of fully autonomous fighting 'bots entered, with each generation getting a bit better than the one before. Terminator 1.0 is long obsolete, and the current crop are at Terminator 1.5. Sure they have a long way to go yet, but remember that technological progress is frequently exponential. The military's current crop of drones are not so much autonomous as they are teleoperated from a base in Nevada.

How long before the deployment of the Bolo Mk 1?

Gun Control

It seems that support for gun control is at an all-time low in the U.S. This does not prevent certain people from engaging in some wishful thinking:

This finding is confirmed by other recent polling that shows that Americans support measures to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous criminals. According to one poll, 89 percent of respondents support requiring all gun buyers to pass a background check at gun shows, 94 percent support requiring gun owners to alert police if their guns are lost or stolen, and 69 percent support requiring those buying ammunition to pass a criminal background check. Another poll showed 86 percent of respondents supported background checks for every gun buyer

"Other recent polling" appears to have been done around the water cooler at the Brady H.Q.

How would you like to pay $10 for a Brady Check before buying a $12 box of ammo? I think this would make bulk purchases vastly more popular. Of course if you buy 1000 rounds of pistol ammo you run the risk of being identified as a terrorist, even after the background check.

The Future of Energy

The EPA has announced that since the country is now getting significant amounts of gas and oil from fracking, that it will soon have in place a complete set of rules and regulations to control the practice.

What do you bet this will amount to a moratorium on the practice?

After all, every barrel of oil we produce and every cubic foot of natural gas is one less ray of sunshine or one less puff of hot air dedicated to making this country as Green as say, North Korea.

It's also one less barrel of oil that Saudi Arabia will be able to sell us.

Energy and Environment

First off, we now hear that cellulosic ethanol is about to hit the market. Oh goody! this means that the additive that reduces your fuel economy and adds to pollution via enhanced evaporation and increased consumption will now be less likely to be made from stuff you would otherwise eat. This should bring down the price of food.

Good thing. You'll need that money to give to the government:

As Poet exec Greg Hartgraves points out, production of cellulosic ethanol is expensive and that means those floodgates need to be helped open with federal monies. Without an energy policy mandating its production, U.S. firms are likely to shy away from the cellulosic biofuel, he said.

But with sufficient financial incentives, the race is on.

If you turn away from motor fuel, which is what ethanol is, we get into the even greener pastures of photovoltaic solar energy. The good news is that manufacturing techniques are getting better and better, enabling those with a supply of the (very) rare earth materials required to partly offset the cost of the underlying product.

The bad news is that most of the mines producing rare earths are in China, and believe me they haven't heard of the EPA there. Of course if your miners all die by age 40, the up side is that there are more where they came from and with their self-induced shortage of women, reducing the supply of men just makes sense.

Absent any progress in the field of converting unicorn farts into limitless energy, it now appears that "energy efficiency" is simply political doublespeak for shutting down your economy. The less industry you have, the less energy you use all around.

Day At The Range

It's always nice when you can spent the whole day at the range with no particular pressure on yourself. Start at 8:30 to help with setup, 9:30 to 2 PM, 4 stages of an IDPA shoot, 2-3, one stage of a carbine side match, in which the Hi Point performed flawlessly, knockdown, set up for an e-postal match, shoot 4 targets, and roll on out at 4 PM, leaving with more brass than I arrived with.

Life is good.

Important Advice

Kevin Williamson at NRO has some advice for the upcoming (ongoing) election. It's not exhaustive by any stretch, but it's a good start:

1. There is no austerity.

Austerity means a program is growing at 5% instead of 6% annually. Anything less than 5% growth is "draconian slashing".

2. There was no deregulation.

The last piece of genuine deregulation I saw was the demise of the "fairness doctrine" at the FCC.

3. You can’t trust Republicans on spending.

Or pretty much anyone else for that matter.

Seven more items at the link. Check 'em out.

Happy Birthday

To Jeff who is 9.

That's in blog years. In human years, that's about 63.

Jobs

It becomes clearer to we ignorant masses when our betters explain things to us using short words in short sentences:

"It's very clear that private-sector jobs have been doing just fine; it's the public-sector jobs where we've lost huge numbers, and that's what this legislation is all about,"
Harry Reid

Now it's clear. If not for the evil Republicans, all those holders of degrees in gay black feminist history who are Occupying Wall Street would be holding jobs with the government administering the opportunities of unborn whales to receive grants to sell solar powered machine guns to Mexican drug traffickers.