Saturday, May 31, 2008

Vote Yellow Dog


Be a Yellow Dog Democrat!

A Yellow Dog Democrat is someone who would vote for anyone, even a yellow dog, if he she or it were running on the Democratic ticket. A Yellow Dog Democrat will even vote for a Blue Dog, or Hillary, or Obama. Follow the Yellow Dog!

The Data Port is back.

Wednesday, May 07, 2008

How Tucson Drives

Badly. Badly, that is, for a town whose drivers are beginning to whine about the high cost of gasoline. Well, I’m sorry---okay, not very--- but didn’t you see it coming before you bought your wheels? Never had an inkling? Oh.

We’re all stuck with the choices we made until we can trade down or get our Albatross Eight paid for; but that doesn’t mean we are helpless.

I regularly ride the Ina Road, Skyline Drive, Sunrise dog-leg. When the light I’m at turns green I shift up through the gears as soon as my engine speed allows. I do not jack-rabbit off the starting line. Invariably the car behind me snaps to my left, barrels past and pulls in front of me so that he can be the first guy at the next red light. He’s there waiting for me when I arrive.

Driving this way I can actually increase my gas mileage by almost three miles per gallon.

For the record my two personal vehicles are a 1990 BMW K75 with sidecar (my pickup truck) and a BMW F650 CS single cylinder solo bike. Riding as I have described I get 40 MPG from the hack and nearly 60 MPG from the solo.

I can’t believe the laws of physics are such that what works for me won’t for work you, whatever you drive.

Tucson’s Rio Nada

The best job of local journalism is not being done by any of the local journals; it’s being done by blogger Matt Foraker over at Sustainability, Equity, Development.

The latest installment (Tuesday, May 6) of his devastating analysis of the Rio Nuevo disaster can be read here.

I particularly relish this paragraph:

I've never met Greg or Hecker, but the cloth alarm is screaming. I have met Snell. I speak with confidence that if you asked these three to team up and bake a pizza, they'd drop fifty grand on an oven study, twelve grand to fly to Greece and watch them, $40 grand to consultants to study 1) dough, 2) sauce, 3) ingredients, 4) cheese, 5) baking temps, 6) pizza size, and 7) crust thickness policies. After extensive meetings and interviews, Snell would drop 75 grand for glossy pamphlets no one will read because everyone's already left for Pizza Hut, where it takes 20 minutes and costs about twelve bucks.

Love it!