Can you make it to the market on a bike?

[Mark]

A Muzi wrote:
>>> "Edward Dolan" <[email protected]> wrote:
> -snip the usual-
>
>> "rotten" <[email protected]> wrote in message
>>> Why did the single payer referendums fail in Oregon and Massachusetts
>>> then? The fact is that while people acknowledge there are large
>>> problems with our health care system, if you look at polls you'll find
>>> that people are satisfied with their own personal healthcare.
>
> Amy Blankenship wrote:
>> How often do polls reach people without phones?
>
> Good point but statisticians have largely corrected for that, noting a
> margin of error which includes both that and other anomalies.

Well, actually, the reported margins of error routinely line up with
those for 95% confidence intervals for simple random samples of the same
size.

In non-technical language, if they /hadn't/ taken phoneless people into
account, and used the most common margin-of-error estimate of random
sampling error, in most cases they'd get the _same_ margin of error as
is reported in the press.

I check this a lot, since I routinely use survey reporting in teaching
my statistics classes.

It's not that the pollsters aren't smart, they certainly know that the
phoneless (and the land-line-less) could be a cause of systematic error
in their polls. Further, most(!) pollsters have strong incentives to
accuracy (it's what they sell) - they don't want another embarrassment
like calling the '48 race for Dewey over Truman.

On the other hand, with the exception of election predictions, there are
very few opportunities for phone-only polls to be proven wrong because
of missing the phoneless (they will only be compared to other phone-only
polls, seemingly), and you can even argue away weak election predictions.

It's possible that the pros (Gallup, etc) have made estimates that show
that !currently! the land-line-less aren't systematically different
enough (or numerous enough) to make a difference. Or it could be that
the problem is being brushed under the rug because there's little to be
done about it.

Mark J.

You'd
> have to imply that unlisted persons as a group are different from listed
> persons as a group in a significant way to worry about it.
>

 

[donquijote1954]

On Jul 27, 3:47 pm, "Joe the Aroma" <[email protected]> wrote:
> "donquijote1954" <[email protected]> wrote in message
>
> news:[email protected]...
>
> > What you say makes so much sense that overrides any theoretical
> > opinions so called "experts" may have. Democracy has to listen to real
> > people in real situations, otherwise it's just technocracy.
>
> Do you enjoy your angry, ineffectual rantings? What purpose does it give
> you?

I enjoy blowing your democratic camouflage. You are the wolf in
sheep's clothing. It all boils down to a fake democracy that ignores
the real needs of the people. You want to parade your hierarchical
system in an SUV. And you hate people in bikes and anything that means
egalitarian transportation...

'Expand your view beyond the question of how we will run all the cars
by means other than gasoline. This obsession with keeping the cars
running at all costs could really prove fatal. It is especially
unhelpful that so many self-proclaimed "greens" and political
"progressives" are hung up on this monomaniacal theme. Get this: the
cars are not part of the solution (whether they run on fossil fuels,
vodka, used frymax™ oil, or cow ****). They are at the heart of the
problem. And trying to salvage the entire Happy Motoring system by
shifting it from gasoline to other fuels will only make things much
worse. The bottom line of this is: start thinking beyond the car. We
have to make other arrangements for virtually all the common
activities of daily life.'

Which draws this response (rather from a lion)...

'The freedom of movement provided by private transportation over
public mass transportation would seem to be a leftist goal.

Yes. Leftists have contradictory goals.

No way the elite will ever give up private transportation. Not gonna
ever happen. So... its elites with freedoms beyond the masses versus

To demonize the leftist goal of egalitarian transportation and
glorifying a luddite leftism -- communism reborn as anarchism -- is to
be assinine.'

http://www.bartcopnation.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=2&topic_id=408107

I guess the elites don't like egalitarian transportation or nothing
democratic. But then WE ARE TALKING REVOLUTION BEYOND BIKES AND BIKE
LANES. We can almost bring back George Orwell from the grave...

Forget about Marx, Lenin, Che or Mao. The next Revolution will be led
by the sardines with no complicated theories and without any need for
big fishes who betray the revolution.


"If there was hope, it must lie in the SARDINES, because only there,
in those swarming disregarded masses, eighty-five per cent of the
population... could the force to destroy the SHARK ever be
generated. ...the SARDINES, if only they could somehow become
conscious of their own strength, would have no need to conspire. They
needed only to rise up and shake themselves like a horse shaking off
flies. If they chose they could blow the SHARK to pieces tomorrow
morning." -George Orwell, "1984"

Well, it's not literally what Orwell said (put the words PROLES and
PARTY in it), but you get the point: THE SARDINES SURE CAN CHALLENGE
THE SHARK!

"The hope lies in the proles," he said in the same book.

***

OK, just having fun.

 

[Brian Huntley]

On Jul 27, 2:36 pm, "Amy Blankenship"
<[email protected]> wrote:
> Just for future reference, "on we" is probably good enough for the type of
> informal communications going on here, but when you are using a form of the
> plural pronoun in business communications as the object of a preposition,
> you may want to consider using "us".


As in "Us, the people...."

The usage was "we employers." Sounds right to me.

 

[donquijote1954]

On Jul 27, 3:46 pm, "Joe the Aroma" <[email protected]> wrote:
> "donquijote1954" <[email protected]> wrote in message
>
> news:[email protected]...
>
> > OK, say I was the President I'd go before the people and say, "My
> > fellow Americans, the state of transportation is pitiful. It's a
> > jungle out there. There are too many accidents on the roads while the
> > Public Transportation and Biking infrastructure sucks. Such sad state
> > of affairs also leads to pollution and war, so all the more reason to
> > change. You know CHANGE is a force of evolution, without it dinosaurs
> > die... So from now on, bicycles will have priority on the right lane
> > of multiple lane roads as well as have other bike facilities. You
> > know, lions still keep their share of the road, but now monkeys can
> > bike in peace. And all other infracture geared for the monkeys will be
> > vastly improved, creating jobs in the process. That's real DEMOCRACY,
> > a place where the monkeys are not discriminated against just for being
> > monkeys. And, of course, you will all have bananas."
>
> I would think transportation issues are mostly local issues and should
> therefor be addressed there. I wouldn't want my president attempting to
> micromanage traffic policy.

I wouldn't want my president to micromanage anything. Just solve the
big problems (Global Warming) and small problems (dangerous roads) so
I can chip in with the effort.

 

[donquijote1954]

On Jul 27, 3:35 pm, "Joe the Aroma" <[email protected]> wrote:

> >> Personally I think it's a loony connection. Bike lanes do not exist
> >> because of democracy, not because we aren't democratic. It's purely
> >> asinine.
>
> > The Scandinavians are remarkably sane people.
>
> Great, I don't see what that has to do with this conversation though.-

Make the connection. They have decided to solve the problem installing
more bike lanes and bike paths. I guess they are more egalitarian and
democratic.

 

[Tony Raven]

donquijote1954 wrote:
>>
>> When your client, The Municipality of Copenhagen, has spent lots of
>> money on these facilities you can hardly tell them they make life more
>> dangerous and should be removed. That would be repeat business suicide
>> so you tell them the facts and then sugar them with a reason to say "But
>> its all right really"
>>
>> Tony
>
> When you show me London has similar bike riding rates to that of
> Copenhagen, I will start listening to you.
>

It doesn't but Cambridge does and I ride there a lot. It doesn't have
much in the way of cycle facilities and what there is is pretty poor and
traffic is not good but lots of people cycle there.

But did you note that the facilities in Copenhagen make cycling more
dangerous overall?

Tony

 

[Joe the Aroma]

"donquijote1954" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> OK, just having fun.

Ok, well at least you admitted it.

 

[donquijote1954]

On Jul 27, 3:49 pm, "Joe the Aroma" <[email protected]> wrote:
> "donquijote1954" <[email protected]> wrote in message
>
> news:[email protected]...
>
> > Well, it seems to me that while imperfect (only human, right?) we can
> > speak about a Danish, Dutch, Cuban or Chinese models where millions of
> > people ride bikes for real life situations. On the other hand
> > countries like the USA and the UK, where the respective ridership is
> > 1% and 3%, can hardly speak for their model. Actually they are models
> > for what NOT to do.
>
> The market will respond if that is true.

The market is always Darwinistic and bicycles is about Civilization.
Frugality is not a virtue among predators.

"What is the market? It is the law of the jungle, the law of nature.
And what is civilization? It is the struggle against nature."
(http://www.federalreserve.gov/boarddocs/speeches/2003/20031211/
default.htm)

 

[donquijote1954]

On Jul 27, 3:48 pm, "Joe the Aroma" <[email protected]> wrote:
> "donquijote1954" <[email protected]> wrote in message
>
> news:[email protected]...
>
> >> How often do polls reach people without phones?
>
> > Polls there at conducted at the Lexus and Mercedes dealers.
>
> It's astounding that this is considered rational debate in this newsgroup.

It's more rational than saying bike lanes are bad for bikes. Are car
lanes bad for cars? Or should we erase all lines between lanes and let
drivers do as they please? Please!

 

[Joe the Aroma]

"donquijote1954" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> On Jul 27, 3:35 pm, "Joe the Aroma" <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> >> Personally I think it's a loony connection. Bike lanes do not exist
>> >> because of democracy, not because we aren't democratic. It's purely
>> >> asinine.
>>
>> > The Scandinavians are remarkably sane people.
>>
>> Great, I don't see what that has to do with this conversation though.-
>
> Make the connection. They have decided to solve the problem installing
> more bike lanes and bike paths. I guess they are more egalitarian and
> democratic.

Or the needs of their citizens are different. I wouldn't expect you to have
the ability, mentally, to make that connection, though.

 

[donquijote1954]

On Jul 27, 4:09 pm, "Joe the Aroma" <[email protected]> wrote:
> "donquijote1954" <[email protected]> wrote in message
>
> news:[email protected]...
>
> You obviously do not have the brains to realize that the per capita
> statistic is completely meaningless.

Oh sure. Perhaps it's true in the case of income but not in the sense
of accidents.

But you don't even need an statistic for that. Just drive for 5
minutes among cars zigzaging around you, and you will know inmediately
you need some armor. You will go to the nearest SUV dealer and get one
--just to be safe.

 

[Joe the Aroma]

"donquijote1954" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> The market is always Darwinistic and bicycles is about Civilization.
> Frugality is not a virtue among predators.

Nonsense, the two are not mutually exclusive at all. Unfettered capitalism
may be the rule of the jungle, but that's not what I"m talking about. And
given the preponderance of bicycles in the third, I'd say that while
bicycles are about many things, they have nothing to do with civilization
any more than any other device.

 

[Joe the Aroma]

"donquijote1954" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> On Jul 27, 3:48 pm, "Joe the Aroma" <[email protected]> wrote:
>> "donquijote1954" <[email protected]> wrote in message
>>
>> news:[email protected]...
>>
>> >> How often do polls reach people without phones?
>>
>> > Polls there at conducted at the Lexus and Mercedes dealers.
>>
>> It's astounding that this is considered rational debate in this
>> newsgroup.
>
> It's more rational than saying bike lanes are bad for bikes. Are car
> lanes bad for cars? Or should we erase all lines between lanes and let
> drivers do as they please? Please!

So what was your point, that they only poll "Lexus and Mercedes dealers"?
You're such a nut, you're hardly worth debating. But this is fun.

 

[[email protected]]

On Fri, 27 Jul 2007 13:40:26 -0700, Brian Huntley
<[email protected]> wrote:

>On Jul 27, 2:36 pm, "Amy Blankenship"
><[email protected]> wrote:
>> Just for future reference, "on we" is probably good enough for the type of
>> informal communications going on here, but when you are using a form of the
>> plural pronoun in business communications as the object of a preposition,
>> you may want to consider using "us".
>
>
>As in "Us, the people...."
>
>The usage was "we employers." Sounds right to me.

Dear Brian,

Sorry, but it's common to confuse subjective and objective case.
Whether we-employers or us-employers is correct depends on whether the
phrase is used as the subject or the object of a phrase or clause.

We, the people, are the proud subject of this sentence.

But this sentence refers to us, the people, as merely the object of a
preposition.

Thus we (not us) grammarians write that he (not him) must be goofing
on us (not on-we).

We like to sneer at whoever/whomever . . .

Sorry, not enough information yet--will whoever/whomever be the
subject or the object of the as-yet unknown subordinate clause?

.. . . at whoever is dumb enough to screw up ****ling little points.
(he is dumb enough, subjective)

.. . . at whomever we can catch screwing up ****ling little points.
(we can catch him, objective)

A dollar and such expertise (expressed with typical snottiness) is
usually enough to get a cup of hot coffee spilled on your lap by a
waiter who/whom . . .

.. . . who (not whom) is annoyed by us jerks.
Subjective case--he is annoyed, not him is annoyed.

.. . . who (not whom) we thought would not be annoyed by jerks like us.
Still subjective case--we thought (that) he, not him, would not be
annoyed.

.. . . whom (not who) we also failed to tip.
Objective case--we failed to tip him, not he.

Another deadly trap is the linking verb, such as to be, which restates
or renames the subject and therfore uses the subjective case.

Technically, you should reply, "It is I" when someone shouts "Who the
hell's at the door?" The predicate noun takes the objective form, so
only an ill-educated policeman will yell "It is me" before kicking the
door in.

Language, however, is an arbitrary collection of customs, not a
logical system resembling computer programming. The proper grammatical
reply "It is I" is never contracted to "It's I"--we say "It's me,
who'd ya think it was?"

Or perhaps _we_ should say, "It is we"? Aaargh! It's us!

Time to go for my ride before it starts raining, whatever "it" may
refer to.

Cheers,

Carl Fogel

 

[Amy Blankenship]

"Joe the Aroma" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
>
> "donquijote1954" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
>>> How often do polls reach people without phones?
>>
>> Polls there at conducted at the Lexus and Mercedes dealers.
>
> It's astounding that this is considered rational debate in this newsgroup.

You are _so_ not in touch with your inner crackpot. What are you doing
here, anyway?

 

[Amy Blankenship]

"Joe the Aroma" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
>
> "donquijote1954" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
>> On Jul 27, 3:35 pm, "Joe the Aroma" <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>>> >> Personally I think it's a loony connection. Bike lanes do not exist
>>> >> because of democracy, not because we aren't democratic. It's purely
>>> >> asinine.
>>>
>>> > The Scandinavians are remarkably sane people.
>>>
>>> Great, I don't see what that has to do with this conversation though.-
>>
>> Make the connection. They have decided to solve the problem installing
>> more bike lanes and bike paths. I guess they are more egalitarian and
>> democratic.
>
> Or the needs of their citizens are different. I wouldn't expect you to
> have the ability, mentally, to make that connection, though.

That's true, or at least their wants are. What they _want_ is to not become
a lot of fat ass lardos like we are.

They look over here at how we are and are truly alarmed.

 

[Amy Blankenship]

"Brian Huntley" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> On Jul 27, 2:36 pm, "Amy Blankenship"
> <[email protected]> wrote:
>> Just for future reference, "on we" is probably good enough for the type
>> of
>> informal communications going on here, but when you are using a form of
>> the
>> plural pronoun in business communications as the object of a preposition,
>> you may want to consider using "us".
>
>
> As in "Us, the people...."
>
> The usage was "we employers." Sounds right to me.

Yes, it is sad that it sounds right to too many of us Americans.

Your problem is that you do not realize that the usage is:

We... do ordain and establish... "...the people of the United States of
America" is modifying we, but has nothing to do with why we was chosen over
us. We is the subject. The dependent clauses in between are also not
relevant to its selection.

For purposes of deciding what pronoun to use, the OP should have truncated
the sentence like this:

"Although I will relocate my business if the whackos down the street
force a mandatory confiscatory wasteful program on we."

When you do that, it becomes more clearly evident that it is incorrect and
should be:

"Although I will relocate my business if the whackos down the street
force a mandatory confiscatory wasteful program on us."

Hope this clarifies;

Amy

 

[Joe the Aroma]

"Amy Blankenship" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> That's true, or at least their wants are. What they _want_ is to not
> become a lot of fat ass lardos like we are.
>
> They look over here at how we are and are truly alarmed.

Hopefully they won't adopt the low-fat, high refined carbohydrate diet that
we did, then.

 

[Amy Blankenship]

"Joe the Aroma" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
>
> "Amy Blankenship" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
>> That's true, or at least their wants are. What they _want_ is to not
>> become a lot of fat ass lardos like we are.
>>
>> They look over here at how we are and are truly alarmed.
>
> Hopefully they won't adopt the low-fat, high refined carbohydrate diet
> that we did, then.

The main thing you have to watch out for there is the rich desserts!

 

[Bill Z.]

Wayne Pein <[email protected]> writes:

> Bill Z. wrote:
>
>
> > The anti-bike lane hysteria of many is just plain silly. All the
> > things are is a special purpose lane. Drivers should be expected
> > to understand what these are, and they are fundamentally no different
> > that HOV lanes or bus lanes - lanes restricted to specific types
> > of vehicles.
>
> Huh? A 4' lane is not different than a HOV or bus lane? Last time I
> checked, these lanes were at least 12'.

Huh? You think the lane width has *anything* to with one's
understanding of right-of-way rules?
>
> And you've already noted that bike lanes are like shoulders. Well,
> shoulders are not intended for vehicular use. They are for providing
> buffer from roadside elements and a vehicle recovery area.

Well, that's a distortion of what I said too. I pointed out that
the cost of a bike lane stripe is about the same as a shoulder
stripe. The bike lanes are treated differently than shoulders
at key locations - intersections and places where the lanes
terminate. A bike lane strip will be dropped (end when the lane
ends), whereas a shoulder strip usually curves and runs to the
curb. If you were guiding on a stripe in bad conditions (rain,
at night), which would you prefer?
>
>
> To justify your claim you would have to show why
> > a bus lane doesn't make drivers suddently incapable of noticing
> > buses.
>
> No he doesn't. A bike lane makes bicyclists less noticable to
> motorists because it creates an additional lane of traffic that
> bicyclists can be obscured by from turning motorists.

Shear nonesense - when riding at less than the normal speed of
traffic, a bicyclist would be in about the same position on the
roadway regardless, and the stripe itself is not a sight-line
obstruction.

> > This is another bogus argument - most cyclists tend to stay way too
> > close to the curb.
>
> Who cares about most cyclists who are ingorant of proper bicycling?
> Get education!

Oh, so you don't care about "most cylclists who are ingorant [sic] of
proper bicycling" and would favor natural selection to get rid of them?

Some of these cyclists who are "ignorant" are children who are too young
to drive a motor vehicle. What do you propose to do with them? Do you
really have a problem with a bike lane along a two lane street with a
25 mph speed limit and relatively little traffic, going past an
elementary school?

Do you have a problem with a bike lane being installed instead of a
shoulder stripe on a 6 lane road, with the bike lane going to the
left of right turn lanes? The alternative is a shoulder stripe
with less lane area in the lane that bicyclist going straight would
use.

If you simply don't like the things just say you don't like them. It
is pointless to come up with silly arguments to justify your
preferences.

--
My real name backwards: nemuaZ lliB