Slashdot Mirror
Bicycles As a Gateway To Government Control
somaTh writes "Dan Maes, a candidate for governor of Colorado, thinks he's found an international conspiracy that starts with bike sharing. The article describes his current complaints with the incumbent's policies. 'The bike program in it of itself, if that's all it is, I wouldn't be opposed to it,' Maes told 9NEWS. 'What I am opposed to is if it's part of a bigger program that the mayor has signed on to as part of a UN program. That I would be opposed to.' He goes on to argue that the bicycle program is only a gateway into bigger policies including, but not limited to, forced abortions and population control. I understand that bike seats are uncomfortable, but I had no idea it was on purpose."
THEN it will be a conspiracy (albeit an expensive one).
OMG !!! ...what a jackass.
- Marching Band: It's not just for breakfast anymore
They've been shown to reduce sperm counts..... At least the traditional hard 10 speed bike seats.
that the UN would be coordinated enough with all of its corruption and ineffectiveness (especially if you listen to guys like Maes) to execute such a nefarious plot.
No matter how way out these whack-jobs are, there are people who believe them and will vote for them.
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
It's like the Dances With Smurfs episode of South Park where butters says to Cartman, "Like what you have to say, like how the President never does anything and how she's changing everything!". Pretty much just like that. I think its a form of cognitive dissonance or something.
the bicycle program is only a gateway into bigger policies including, but not limited to, forced abortions and population control.
If you're a guy and you don't ride a good bike with a 'nad-friendly-seat' you're on your way down the path of bike-conspiracy-related sterilization which will result in population control.
... because I don't want to offend any crazy people.
I don't want to call this guy crazy
Also brought to you by the Folks Who Is Convinced That Mr. Obama is one of them Muzlams
When the foot seeks the place of the head, the line is crossed. Know your place. Keep your place. Be a shoe.
Next thing you know, he'll say skateboards are the Highway to Satanism, Goatse Worship, and the Global Domination of Barking Pumpkins and Douchebags.
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
In case you care, he's a Republican. I wonder how closely he follows the party line? Or maybe party is irrelevant on /.
If you must moderate, please moderate as irrelevent, not something bad, because I'm sure someone will find this interest
All your bike are belong to us
precious bodily fluids in any of this?
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GeneralRipper
Bless their pointy little heads.
No incumbents, not no where, not no how.
Vote them out every term.
I am living here in US for last 10 years and I am getting sick of it because of people like this one. This country is going more and more backwards each and every day. Societies make progress by being socially liberal and progressive not being ass backwards social conservative. I for one am convinced that we are seeing real decline of the US American society as we know it.
One correction - The incumbent in this election for governor is Bill Ritter who is not running for re-election. Maes Democratic opponent is John Hickenlooper who is currently the mayor of Denver
...that the bike seats were designed to make you wear stupid pants.
It seems that there is no lower bound in politics.
"It's all part of this population control mentality that we as humans are the disease," Strauch said.
Yes, from the point of the view of the planet and every other living thing, we are the disease. There's somewhere around 6+ billion people, happily eating, consuming, polluting, and destroying to our hearts' content. Installing higher efficiency light bulbs or buying Prius' or switching to riding a bike aren't going to avert a collapse in our global ecology/economy. We have to stop destroying our food and ecosystems on which we rely and undo the damage we've done. In short, stop charging to our children's credit cards, start paying them off, then start saving. Switching to riding a bike is like spending just a little less on their credit cards. We have to do so much more.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
I think that it's about time we fluoridate this guy's drinking water!
OMG! There's a socialist under every rock, and we need to protect ourselves from these anti-consumerist, anti-free trade, anti-American perpetrators of evil! Sharing bikes is a sign of socialism, and everyone needs to buy their own bike if we are to have a free and functioning democracy. If we let these socialist put bikes out there to share, it is inevitable they will hook our young children on their evil ideas of sharing. Once people start sharing, particularly government purchased stuffs, our young will grow into people who will want a bigger government which provides more stuffs to share. Where will it end? It won't end with bikes. It won't end with cars, RVs, boats or the like. No, soon the government will grow to offer all sorts of things. This bike program is really a back door route to medical health care. If we're getting free bikes to use, we'll want free health care. That's when the socialists have got us. Of course, free medical care will lead to limiting children, death panels, and LSD. Stop the socialists today, "Just say no to bicycles!".
Judging by history, nearly every single expansion of government power is later used as precedent for yet even more expansion of government power. Every year we are subject to more laws, more spending, and increasingly larger attacks on our freedom (from our own government that is, not the enemy du jour). It's obvious that if expanding the business of government isn't the #1 priority, it's damn near close.
There's a reason why the US government of today dwarfs the US government of only 50, let alone 100 years ago, both in revenue and power over the people -- and it's not because the elite at the top don't know exactly how to expand their business.
Therefore, the only way to be free is to be stupid and waste resources.
The Invisible Hand of the Free Market is what punches workers in the nuts.
Nice to see useless idiots still arguing over the bikeshed..
"What I am opposed to is if it's part of a bigger program that the mayor has signed on to as part of a UN program.
Use people's fears and suck them in.
I don't find the politicians as disgusting as the morons who buy into the rhetoric; which unfortunately, they have enough sway to set the tone of politics in this country.
RIP America
July 4, 1776 - September 11, 2001
Those of us with the Salon sidebar aleady saw this in This Week in Crazy
Riding bikes can lead to impotence in human males. See http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/04/health/nutrition/04bike.html. I don't think this is what the candidate was thinking about...
mccarthyism was an era of fear of "secret communists" everywhere, and joe mccarthy successfully inserted himself as demagogue in chief of the wave of fear and hysteria sweeping the land in the time of sputnik and soviets with an atom bomb. strangely, it was also an era when 3D movies were all the rage... spin that observation into your own paranoid schizophrenic conspiracy theory
one of the up and coming tea party types will be the next joe mccarthy. they will use this sort of paranoid schizophrenic break with reality to describe "secret muslims" (that's what obama is, ya know), "secret socialists", "secret fascists", etc. taken on their own, theses hysterical creative inventions are like a farcical hollywood movie. but so many actually and truly believe this crap
there's just a certain panicky low iq kind of human, in the usa and other countries, who is apparently about as gullible as a toddler in a carnival haunted house ride, and for whatever reason, they only believe the most fantastical fearful propaganda they encounter. i guess reality is too mundane and boring? i don't know what to do about these people, they have these coordinated waves of fear throughout history, and i don't know if there is an effective way to defuse their delusional problems before they damage our societies
its the same as the salem witch trials: she dresses funny, and floats, so she's a witch, so kill her before she hurts us. in the era of joe mccarthy, it was fluoridated water (fluoridated water was not to strengthen teeth, but to turn you into a communist). later there were "chemtrails": jet airplanes contrails were seeding the atmosphere with mind control chemicals. people really and truly believed and believe this nonsense. its alternatively hilarious and frightening. it tells you the mentality of how lynch mobs form, its a sad phenomenon of human sociology
and this manipulated fearmongered hysteria is the mentality that is sweeping the land right now. sad
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I understand that bike seats are uncomfortable, but I had no idea it was on purpose.
It depends on whether you want to make your butt fit the saddle, or the saddle fit the butt. That's why I ride on a Brooks saddle: I'd prefer that the saddle be the one doing the adjusting.
Anyway, so now I'm part of another international conspiracy....
"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." -- George Orwell
Where I come from we have 50% illiteracy rates but we still elect rocket scientists and economics PhDs for higher offices. It is amazing in this country of 100% literate people so many are so anti-intellectuals.
It doesn't matter if his point is legitimate, or if he clearly makes the statement that he wants time to study what the mayor has signed onto. He's a republican and he doesn't like bikes. This has nothing to do with an environmental initiative that is being spearheaded without review. Remember if you want bills to be read by congress before they are voted on then you are a racist who doesn't like the children or the poor. It's funny who people who opposed the Patriot Act for all the right reasons turn a blind eye to this new wave of legislation that is going through without checks or balances of any kind, and without even the time for everyone to know what it's all about. Remember Ted Stevens said the Internet is made of tubes, not that he did anything good or bad. Move along folks, nothing to see here other than a Republican who doesn't like bikes.
That's the whole point about programs for the greater good, though-- it need not turn a profit because it's FOR THE GREATER GOOD. Yeah, sometimes small businesses get wiped out. If that's your most important criteria, you will never make a change for the better, because it will always have some bad.
People complain all the time that Amtrak doesn't make a profit, but... nobody seems to notice or care that our roads don't either.
It's about as important a concern as is sentient robots enslaving the human race. Sure, I can imagine scenarios in which it could happen, but there's no evidence that we're headed down such a path.
We could argue all day about what's happening in regards to the USA's position and authority in the world, but we're an awful long way from the UN or anybody else pressuring our government into accepting mandates on anything.
This guy is just combining fear-mongering, american exceptionalism, and paranoid delusions to try and make his political opponents look bad. He is saying nothing of value.
One time I threw a brick at a duck.
I mean... WTF?
I read the article and reread and reread it, and I cannot even begin to see how, from *ANY* perspective that I can conceive of some other even modestly intelligent person having, that one could come to the conclusions that he did.
Most conspiracy theories I've heard of have at least a shred of something to at least build the conspiracy on, but I just can't find any evidence of it in that article.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
With so many other topics for an election to focus on. Such as the budget crisis of city and state governments across the US. You would think they would have better things to discuss than BICYCLE CONSPIRACIES.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
I, for one, welcome our new bike-sharing overlords.
But I likes sellin' them thar buggy whips, you insensitive clod!
Don't forget the forced gay sex and idol worship.
That all starts with riding a bike, kids.
You could argue that increasing bicycle usage was the opposite effect-- of decreasing governmental control and increasing freedom. Right now we're reliant on a massive government-controlled system of roads which we travel on via government-subsidized vehicles. Automobiles are big and regulated and subsidized and result in a sort of "central planning". Bicycles on the other hand-- anyone can build a bicycle. A bicycle doesn't need a road, and bike paths are much easier to build/move.
I suspect this comes more from the belief that if something is healthy and environmentally friendly and doesn't subsidize big businesses, then it must be some kind of nefarious socialist hippie plot.
This guy is just combining fear-mongering, american exceptionalism, and paranoid delusions to try and make his political opponents look bad. He is saying nothing of value.
Umm, yeah. He's a politician. That's what we voted him in for. He's a Republocrat, and will save us from the Evil Demoblicans.
"This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
TFS says...
He goes on to argue that the bicycle program is only a gateway into bigger policies including, but not limited to, forced abortions and population control. I understand that bike seats are uncomfortable, but I had no idea it was on purpose."
The link says....
Nate Strauch told The Associated Press that Maes was trying to say that the biking initiative is a "gateway program" being pushed by ICLEI on cities that eventually lead to extreme measures, such as the promotion of abortions and population control
Are we to believe there's no difference?
Bike sharing is forced population control? Perhaps because when you have a bike accident, you slip from your seat and bust your nuts on the horizontal frame bar?
it has been conjectured that long term male bicyclists have damaged prostates, erectile dysfunction, and reduced fertility
the ergonomics of vigorous bike riding basically means you are constantly punching yourself in the perineum with a bike seat
so score one for the delusional paranoid schizophrenics: bicycle use IS population control
delusional paranoid schizophrenics take note: now you need a tin foil jockstrap too
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I understand that bike seats are uncomfortable, but I had no idea it was on purpose.
Obviously, you haven't ridden Dan's bicycle over some of Colorado's back-country.
The government can have control of my bicycle when they pry it from my cold, dead cleats.
The story pointed to is 14 days old. I remember some slashdot (or possibly boingboing) story pointing to it, some time ago. Just can't find the link.
And this is why there should be mandatory drug testing for political candidates. If I have to have a drug screening to get a job, they should too.
"The bike program in it of itself, if that's all it is, I wouldn't be opposed to it," Maes told 9NEWS. "What I am opposed to is if it's part of a bigger program that the mayor has signed on to as part of a UN program. That I would be opposed to."
"It's all part of this population control mentality that we as humans are the disease," Strauch said. "He never said that biking is inherently wrong."
Question - Why can't people just own their own bikes? What's with all the government involvement at the actual bike level? These devices are often less than $200, which is relatively very little. The plan costs at least $65/year, and that's before whatever these 'usage fees' are. These are close to equivalent, except B-cycle needs facilities, a web presence, and a less-than-trivial number of staff members to make it efficient.
If the city wanted to leverage funds to make people ride more bikes, why not simply subsidize their purchase? Particularly in this economy, this would certainly be welcomed by the local bike retailers. As the plan stands, they will probably hurt sales of bikes.
So here we have a plan that is probably not economical, hurts local business, and adds complexity to the government.
Why?
What is to stop someone from just renting a bike and taking it home as their own, thus causing the program to eventually collapse. How are they going to know that you took a bike, You could just say you were "renting one for a few days".
FYI: I drive a car to work, i don't mind more people on bikes as long as they stay on the bike paths and don't try to ride on the streets.
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
Unicycles, or worse tandem bicycles!
I went to battle M.C. Escher, but drew a blank.
FYI - Dan Maes followed these comments by winning the Republican primary. He defeated Scott McInnis, who just paid $300,000 to settle a plagiarism suit. Now all Maes has to worry about (other than John Hickenlooper, the Democratic candidate) is Tom Tancredo, who is also known for making some outlandish comments:
http://rdonaldsnyder.newsvine.com/_news/2010/07/09/4647834-poll-is-tom-tancredo-bat-guano-crazy
Not exactly a bumper crop of top-quality Republicans this year in the state of Colorado.
There is a conspiracy here but, not the one you think. The council of 12 that runs the world has been only allowing only truly insane people to run for office in the United States for the last 15 years. All sane people who want to run for office are quietly taken aside to have their minds wiped of all desire to be involved in politics.
No sigs in BETA. Beta SUCKS.
Commenting to fix a fat fingered mod. Pretend you got a +1 insightful
As pro-life anti-NWO, I am sympathetic to this position of Dan Maes, even though I am also pro-bicycle. The problem is that Dan Maes is not strongly pro-life, or at least is going about it the wrong way. For political expediency, he has copped the standard line, "Roe v. Wade is the law of the land ... I would not try to undo that." If Roe v. Wade is not a pro-life battle worth fighting, then why would a UN bicycle program be?
This anti-UN bicycle position is either a blunder by a political novice or a clever way to gain international publicity. In either case, it doesn't advance the pro-life cause.
If they are used like the NVA used them, it would turn around and bite them in the ass.
Hmm... So if I say "FOR THE GREATER GOOD." I can pass any legislation without looking at the consequences or the opportunity cost. Good to know. It's like the new "Think of the children." Maybe we should just federally fund domestically made electric vehicles for everyone. It would be a boost to GM/Ford and lower our dependence on foreign oil. Sure it would be expensive, but it's "FOR THE GREATER GOOD." we can just get the money by taxing all the business since they have an unlimited amount of money and this will have no consequences on them or the economy as a whole. I shouldn't have said that. We're about to have a lame duck session of congress.
Is it because they can't get *any* other job?
I mean seriously; sometimes it seems as if only low-grade morons who were ejected from the short bus for being too stupid, are the only people who are capable (or interested) in running the local, state, and federal government positions.
Smart people, it seems, know they can make more in the private sector, but, then I have to wonder about these private-sector billionaires who then turn around and run for the public office (often using their own money as campaign funds). Did these guys suddenly realize there's more to be made in graft and corruption?
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
The slashdot summary incorrectly states:
The news article to which it links to states:
So the summary misattributes to a Republican candiate statements about a U.N. conspiracy to promote abortions and exercise population control.
Ceci n'est pas une signature.
Using bikes limits how far you can go, what you can do and carry. You are dependent on government to take you further, to bring you things. Of course the government overlords will still be allowed to use cars, which you will not be able to escape on your bike.
Amtrak is not a good example. It's an antiquated system that few people use and doesn't really meet anyone's needs.
I looked into using Amtrak to visit family, but it would take me 12-14 hours to get to my destination when I can drive there in 6 or 7. Amtrak is not much cheaper than flying, either.
Greyhound is far more cost effective and practical for the average traveler. Greyhound is also privately owned and operated.
I'm not against these bicycle programs. I'm just saying they are net losers all around in every measurable way.
4 wheels good, 2 wheels bad?
The problem with bike-sharing programs is that if nobody owns the bike, nobody maintains it either. Property ownership is the ONLY thing that gives a man any power, no matter how small that power may be. I bristle at attempts by politicians to soft-peddle any form of communalism to me.
Next time, try posting what you're refuting.
Whoosh!
I'm a "pro population control" kind of guy, I think it's clear we have a "surplus" of humans when people like this guy (Maes) and frankly if we were all riding bikes to work or walking we wouldn't be fat, we would have far less air pollution and we would have an awesome public transportation or better city planning.
I think 1 billion humans is as large as we should ever get on this planet.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
It seems like the crazy theories are getting more traction (at least, they're getting more people talking about them as if they were real).
I blame the media - Glenn Beck, FOX, CNN. It's apparently cheaper to yammer on about random stuff than to pay real journalists to gather real news. And it seems to get better ratings. Of course, this increase in ratings means that the old line news organizations see they are losing out and feel the need to climb onto the bandwagon. And, of course, we all enjoy a bit of gossip and a good conspiracy theory.
It's all fun and games until a majority of people in your town start thinking of the National Enquirer as a reliable source of news. Seriously, people, some of this stuff is from WAY out in left field. {joke alert} Even I'm starting to believe Obama's "long form" (because the "short form" and a legal affadavit from the Hawaiian secretary of state aren't good enough) birth certificate is being hidden at the UN to keep us from learning the truth!
So...how do we reverse this and encourage more critical thinking? I fear for our democracy if this silliness continues much longer.
They're now running for Governor of Colorado.
I just knew those bicycles were evil. Why soon those riders would be demanding that the state hire Appalachian coal companies to flatten all those darn mountains that make biking too difficult.
Here in Michigan, home of the almighty Michigan Militia, they've been handing out flyers (Poorly Xeroxed? You Bet!) expounding these same theories.
After seeing how amazingly disorganized the UN seems to be in most cases outside of disaster relief, I find the idea of them ruling the world slightly humorous. Of course, that's what happens when you try to save the world by forming an organization dedicated to forming committees and fostering understanding by sending peacekeepers to and from utterly disparate nations. (Polish peacekeepers to Ghana! Scottish Peacekeepers to Paraguay! It's like a freaking parlor game.)
There are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell 'em.
Where airtime is given to anybody saying anything shocking or idiotic. And even posted at Slashdot.
He goes on to argue that the bicycle program is only a gateway into bigger policies including, but not limited to, forced abortions and population control.
Someone else said that, not Crazy Maes. I don't think the summary summarizes the story very well ...
The story itself doesn't summarize things well. The person it's quoting is Nate Strauch, but we're never told that he's the spokesperson for Maes's campaign.
===== will post for karma
If you could install a brain fungus in 20% of the people, there is a high probability you would increase their intelligence no what what species of fungus was introduced.
...guys like Dan Maes make me weep.
Please, lay off the Kool-Aid, ok? We got REAL problems to solve, making up new ones is not helpful.
PS - if the U.N. could, they would. But they can't, so we need not yet worry. Not yet.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Unicycles are not fair and balanced.
...and "nannystate". I think they're required for rants of this sort.
Anyway, the political career of Warren Chisum (as well as some of the posts in this very thread) proves that this guy's insane public pronouncement will not have any effect on the number of conservatives/libertarians who will vote for him.
People complain all the time that Amtrak doesn't make a profit, but... nobody seems to notice or care that our roads don't either.
Yeah, I hardly know what to say when people complain that public transportation isn't profitable. The police don't make a profit. Our courts aren't profitable. Fire departments, the military, roads and bridges-- none of these things bring in more money than they expend.
At least not directly. All of these things work indirectly to create circumstances where other things can create profit. Without the police and court systems, we would live in a chaotic and inefficient system where economic growth would be difficult. But either way, why is "profit" the only important measure? "Profit" is essentially a human invention designed to encourage positive outcomes. It's a means, not an end. If the same ends can be reached through other means, then profit is irrelevant.
I read the article. Its very nice. Its just that I was expecting the topic of Tin Foil Hats(tm) to come up. I saw bicycle, and government control and conspiracy and immediately thought to myself: "Where does the ground strap connect the bicycle to the Tin Foil Hat(tm)?" Its a reasonable question. While I'm moving about in my non-satellite-controlled, faster-than-walking transportation device, I'm not about to have those very satellites probe my thoughts, but the tires of the bike act as an insulator to earth ground, so the frame of the bike can be used to substitute and therefore I'm going to need a ground strap connecting the bike frame to the hat. I looked for it in the article, but I didn't see it. Was some of the article under government control? Was Cmdr. Taco under government influence when he authorized the article? Was he forced to edit it? Perhaps too its an issue with the tubes!
Yea, the guy's talking nonsense - trying to link his opponent to the UN through some international tree hugger organization. But I don't read Slashdot to find articles about Tea Partiers that were scraped from an AOL website founded by a former NY Times editor. Sheesh.
Neither the RNC and the Republican Governors Association will commit any money to Maes's candidacy and have outright told him to drop out. His Democratic opponent is John Hickenlooper, the current mayor of Denver, who is apparently popular to the point where they're going to carry him in to office on a sedan chair. It's going to be one of the most lopsided governor races in history.
I'm not going to get into the mechanics of why, or the multiple examples to show he has a valid thought process but I actually agree with him. I'm a Libertarian so I'm not on the Republican band wagon, and I am a biker (a BMXer) so I'm certainly not in the anti-bike crowd.
My solution:
Study the program and create a parallel one to implement. Figure out what the international program has right, what it has wrong and make a U.S. centric one with him as the founder and implement it. You keep the people who really care about the bike part happy, you make the environmentalist happy, the only people you piss off are the ones who are opposed to both programs and the ones who actually do have have goals with an international program.
Sometimes knock off programs outlast the big ones anyways since they're more locally focused and don't have to stretch so far.
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
The ironic thing is that the plan to have communal bicycles was initially broached by the Provos in the 1960s. The Provos were a group of Dutch anarchists. Damn big government anarchists!
yay i cant read all the comments. dont know why but /. seems broken.
no Slider no nothing to expand the comments. tried 3 browsers also just for s*** and giggles.
second article in 2 days.
besides it is having issues taking my captcha.
i think, psychologically, it has to do with fear of change
some people have a real problem with change. it makes sense evolutionarily: don't change what works. when you live in hunter gatherer societies, what works can work for thousands of years. but modern times has constant technological and social change washing over society, such that minds with this "fear change" gene creates theses inane nitwits
"we wear red face paint at the start of every hunting season, and now this guy says its not necessary?" (insert paranoid schiziophrenia, fear, etc.) i think this innate inertia about social change in some people has been with us forever: some people have a brain condition, that, at some point in our evolution, gave them a survival advantage, but now, is a detriment in their ability to reason
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
From ICLEI's web site their "approach links local action to internationally agreed-upon goals and targets such as: (the UN''s) Agenda 21". Agenda 21 is environmentalism and redistribution of wealth all rolled up into one. One of the Agenda 21 section heads is "International cooperation to accelerate sustainable development in developing countries and related domestic policies". Agenda 21 further states that "the major cause of the continued deterioration of the global environment is the unsustainable pattern of consumption and production, particularly in industrialized countries" In EZ speak, we are to blame for poverty, and AGW. Their solution is to give our money to developing countries, and to change our domestic policies to accomplish this task.
It's not a conspiracy, it's their stated goals. So YES, this seemingly innocuous bike program IS the very foot in the door that Maes is worried about. If you are not worried that someone is using mild mannered programs, like bike sharing, to start the ball rolling for global redistribution of wealth, and succeeding sovereignty to the UN, then you have NOT RTFA'd.
I'm just "this guy", you know?
Don't know about you guys, but I'm definitely putting tin foil on the seat before I sit on it.
Worst case scenario on the over consumption is that we all go back to using animals for labor and transportation (granted with a less beautiful earth after all the strip mining and mountain destroying). Who says we need to have our current energy based society for ever?
FTFA:
"Maes said he thought promoting more bicycling was pretty harmless at first, but he realized later "that's exactly the attitude they want you to have." "
Psst, Dan and Kevin; I've got a proposal;
"International mind control conspiracies "They" don't want you to know about."
Of course, if I can suggest something like that, maybe I'm the one already in "control" hmm?
dot-sig.
Worst case is worse than that. Look at the worst collapses of civilization, like Easter Island. (All) 17 species of trees went extinct, as in they either cut down every last tree, or the last few died on their own. Without trees, the soil washed away, animals they used to eat all died, and they could no longer make boats to go fish. The population crashed from 20,000 or more to fewer than 2,000 practically overnight. The damage we're doing could result in an equally horrendous but global collapse. Like Easter Island, there may be no going back, no way to undo the damage once it's done. Early civilizations overused their environments in the same way we're doing now but on a smaller scale, and they turned their dominions into desert. China, Egypt, Incas, Mayans, and many others were once in the middle of lush fertile regions, and now occupy nothing but desert. And now we're consuming, destroying, and polluting with the help of technology. Who's to say there will be anything habitable on which to farm?
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
Crap. I forgot about Easter Island. I watched a documentary that seemed to indicate that they cut down their trees for the main purpose of transporting their massive statues in an attempt to one-up each others' tribes. I can only hope that we lose much of our transportation technology before we can destroy everything.
"Like Easter Island, there may be no going back, no way to undo the damage once it's done."
Eventually, erosion would eliminate Easter Island *entirely*, no matter what the inhabitants did. There's also a strong possibility that sediments and seeds will be naturally deposited there, creating a new component of ecosystem.
In the big picture, it's nothing.
On behalf of everybody else in Colorado, we're sorry to have elected this dumbass. Please just ignore him.
one of the up and coming tea party types will be the next joe mccarthy. they will use this sort of paranoid schizophrenic break with reality to describe "secret muslims" (that's what obama is, ya know), "secret socialists", "secret fascists", etc. taken on their own, theses hysterical creative inventions are like a farcical hollywood movie. but so many actually and truly believe this crap
One of the up and coming tea party types is already here, you actually described him perfectly: Glenn Beck.
This story is a few weeks old - which is why they're talking about the "upcoming" primary. Since this story was written, Maes won the Republican primary (just barely). He is now the official Republican candidate for Colorado Governor.
More or less. It was over consumption gone crazy, and it destroyed them. They also had to mine and carve up all that rock, whose labor could have been used more productively. In any case, there are several other civilizations that have wiped themselves out. Only two, actually, have figured out to use their resources in a sustainable fashion: Iceland and some small island in the south pacific whose name I can't remember. They went to incredible lengths and exhibited rare discipline. We aren't within three orders of magnitude of that they did.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
Wednesday, Maes couldn't tell 9NEWS exactly what issue he had with ICLEI or Denver's membership in the program.
"I haven't even had the time to visit the terms of the agreement that Mayor Hickenlooper has signed off on," Maes said in a phone interview. "I am gonna beg a little patience from the media, so I can study the details of this program and then make a much more informed commentary about it."
In one sentence: I'm against it, but I can't tell you why yet, because I haven't yet had time to study the papers...
"turn a blind eye to this new wave of legislation that is going through without checks or balances of any kind, and without even the time for everyone to know what it's all about."
Could you elaborate on this? There is nothing I can see in the article about "without checks or balances of any kind, and without even the time for everyone to know what it's all about".
Perhaps you have another source that discusses this, or are you offering speculation in the place of fact?
Unfortunately, American politics tends to favor candidates who profess "local first" ideals, even to the point of xenophobia. Mr. Maes seems to think that an hint of internationalism instantly taints a program. It's interesting that he wants to be a governor, since Colorado's economy is absolutely dependent on globalism. Take the beef industry. Images of ranchers raising cattle are intimately linked to ideas of homeland and small town values. Yet Colorado is the fastest growing beef exporter. Colorado ranchers are dependent on Mexico, Canada, Japan and Korea as their four largest markets! For instance, according to the Colorado Dept. of Agriculture, "exports of beef to Mexico grew by over 37 percent in 2008 to $206 million and Mexico continued in 2008 as the top export market for Colorado beef. Colorado's beef industry supplied over 21 percent of all beef exports from the U.S. to Mexico and was second only to Texas as a beef supplier to Mexico." Would a xenophobic governor really serve Colorado well? I doubt it. If people really understood how much internationalism supports their piece of the American dream they'd either have to cry in the shower while they scrub the dirty internationalism off their skin or change their politics into something that makes sense.
This puts forth an interesting idea, but, I notice that the actual story doesn't really have any evidence or facts. In fact Maes himself admits in the article that he doesn't know what the heck he is talking about.
But what are his economic policies?
You're under the false impression that using animals for labor and transportation is more energy efficient than using machines. It isn't. The only reason it worked way back when was because we had far fewer people. Imagine all the extra animals we would need to add and the food they would require, the greenhouse gases they would be emitting, the medical care.
China, Egypt, Incas, Mayans, and many others were once in the middle of lush fertile regions, and now occupy nothing but desert.
The rest of your post has good points, but these examples are mainly the result of a warming globe following the last ice age slowly pushing the fertile regions towards the poles rather than overuse. (And the Mayan region is still pretty lush.)
And only a few days ago I was pumelled by people with mod points for daring to suggest that the "slippery slope" fallacy might exist.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
All these adults and seniors are willing to shame theirselves because they think we all deserve a better living and lifestyle than what's being planned by foreigners selling the products on our market shelves because we have been bullied-out of the market of the same by corporations and debilitating legal harassment rigging the codes and evidence-collections. Do you forget the Security and Prosperity Partnership entered-into by George W. Bush on behalf of the United States? Do you not remember to read your EULA's, because SPP facilited through the Trans-Texas Trade Corridor may have a lingering failure to build that 30-lane Super Highway from Mexico to MicHiggan, but let me remind you that one of the conditions of the United States to enter the Pan-American Union through that SPP agreement was to
Look at all the health problems people have today. There are industries forcing dangerous experimental medical treatments through the courts onto those that get libeled and slandered as being "incapable of caring for theirselves." There are industries existing that sell CLEAN WATER kits that remove Fluoride and other contaminants allowed by governments. Forced innoculations are everywhere and disguised as Vaccines onto a culture that is progressively being indoctrinated to consume fiewer foods containing Vitamin-D1 and Vitamin-D2.
Just look! LOOOK!
without prejudice
>nothing to see here other than a Republican who doesn't like bikes.
He's not just "a Republican", he's a candidate for office who won a primary. He represents a large number of other Republicans.
He's not just someone who "doesn't like bikes", he's someone who considers it likely enough to make public statements about that a bikeshare program is part of a murderous conspiracy.
And I'm proud to be an American who gets just 5 mpg
Tweet, tweet.
I told Comrade Borris that those the Bikes where going to give the game away and painting them True blue didnt help :-)
So is population control not one of the direct solutions to global warming/overpopulation? If you really believe that global warming is going to kill us all, how can bikes solve the problem? The argument that this is a potential gateway program makes perfect sense, but I don't know what it is a gateway program into. Maybe a carbon tax/credit scheme. Maybe light rail. Maybe free balloons for everyone. I don't know. If someone has time to research ICLEI http://www.iclei.org/index.php?id=iclei-home then please let me know. Until then I'll remain ignorant, yet still know that bicycles aren't the end point of this organization's movement for change. Still I'm sure whatever the end goal is it's "For the common good." (TM).
Most city bike rental systems charge very low fees for short periods of time (a couple of hours, say), but high fees for longer than that -- they want the bikes to be used, not locked up somewhere where other people can't use them. The result is bike shops still do the same business they always did, renting bikes for half-days or longer (example).
In fact, the Minneapolis scheme is exactly like this: free for half an hour, $1.5 for the next half hour, $3 for the next hour, then $6 for each half hour after that.
The point of it is that he doesn't like the idea of Municipalities joining international groups to influence their planning, spending, etc. The argument is that local goverments are going to start performing as arms of these organizations. Bikes are just one example of this. What if the next thing that happens is all the chinese cities in this org decide that in addition to pushing bikes, they should push mandatory abortions. Yes, I know they're no where near that, but in 1910 there wasn't much chance of us having a black president...
Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins, for they are subtle, and quick to anger.
That's the whole point about programs for the greater good, though-- it need not turn a profit because it's FOR THE GREATER GOOD. Yeah, sometimes small businesses get wiped out. If that's your most important criteria, you will never make a change for the better, because it will always have some bad.
While I agree that is needed for some things, it's important to keep it in balance. There is a limit to how many unprofitable but good things you can do and that limit is determined by the profit making activities.
Without those profit making enterprises there is no money to fund the community activities, so to implement the "greater good" to the detriment of the profit generation that makes that good possible is ultimately to self-destruct.
I believe the original (perhaps not the first, but the most media-friendly) quote from Maes warned that the bike-sharing program was "converting Denver into a United Nations community." Now, depending on who you talk to, this may not even be such a bad thing; but the most entertaining part is how huge he blows the conspiracy theory, claiming that "this is bigger than it looks like on the surface, and it could threaten our personal freedoms." This leaves Colorado conservatives with a difficult choice: Dan Maes, or ex-Republican Tom Tancredo, who is running for the American Constitution Party and believes that we should repeal the Voting Rights Act. Jim Crow mk II, anyone?
BLACK KNIGHT SECURITY SYSTEMS
We'll bite your legs off
"In Soviet Russia Bike Rides You!!!"
So, what we have here is a crazed republican telling everyone that a bike program contains evil policy that threatens our personal freedoms. Yet, he can't tell us how or why it's going to happen. Yeah. Ok.
Can we just evict all Republicans from the country already? They seem more and more like they're only comprised of raving lunatics.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
I can't... how do you... and then the bit about...
HOLY FUCKING HELL! I'm having a hard time beliving the amount of fail in this post. I mean, I'm am just staggered by this. There are psychotic patients in wards that have to have a better grasp on the world then this guy. I'd say you need to be THIS messed up to vote for mr. UN-bike-conspiracy.
And on the off-chance that you're reading any replies, and you're not completely immune to rational retorts:
1) There is no such thing as sustainable growth. At least on planet earth. It's a nice thing to strive for, but there will always be limits. For example; one of those big limits that humanity is running into is oil.
2) It's less ironic and more like bullshit. The broken window fallacy and PR stunts are indeed issues that you could use to demean the democrats, but then you use the clunkers program and solar power as examples? wtf?
3) You equate nazi's, corporatist fascists, and Glenn Beck. This is fitting. But then you raise them up on a pedestal, and praise them. And not only them, but the chaos, bloodshed, burning, warfare and hell on earth that comes with them. Cause hey, some cool tech was developed at the time.
3 again) Let me be clear, you are arguing the benefits of widespread chaos and destruction. You're only missing a maniacal laugh and you're a supervillian from a comic book.
4) You ARE ozymandias, you're empire will collapse around you and nothing will remain. Cause you're fucking crazy. Roman emperor crazy.
From TFA: "This is bigger than it looks like on the surface, and it could threaten our personal freedoms," Maes said in comments that were first reported Wednesday by The Denver Post.
What threatens our freedom every day in America is short-witted and corrupted politicians, with a political agenda the size of a phone book. Not an organized bicycle ride. I do not understand why Slashdot gives voice to this kind of thing. Why not post articles about people that matters: nurses, engineers, quirky artists, scientists, teachers, writers, people who inspires and do some good for their community instead.
Maes is not yet governor (or even governor-elect) of Colorado. Hickenlooper (currently mayor of Denver) may well defeat him in the general election.
... have that spelled out?
Even someone who's only casually following American politics would have been able to deduce the Maes was a teabagger.
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
I swear, all these government-conspiracy/takeover/whatever folks must never have been to the DMV in their lives...
Is it the same government I see, the one that is completely incapable of winning wars, balancing budgets, reforming social security, reforming health care, building proper infrastructure, saving the economy, upholding its own constitution, or of doing even the most basic paperwork properly, that is also supposedly the executor of countless nefarious schemes for total domination that, despite constituting the most perfect and massive conspiracy in the history of the world, leave no trace whatsoever of their existence?
Unless the DMV is just a cover operation run badly ON PURPOSE to convince everyone how incompetent they are!!!
Oh man.
They're good.
How'd you get from Amtrak to bicycle programs?
Bicycle programs are cheap, compared to widening major roads downtown -- making them a great way to eke out some extra population density in areas where eminent domain just wouldn't fly.
The cities spending money on bike programs aren't only doing so on account of having a strong hippie contingent; cycle commuters are much, much cheaper in terms of infrastructure support than the single-occupancy vehicles they largely replace, and (as people tend to plan their lives to avoid more than 45 minutes commuting each way when possible) cycle commuting encourages folks to move closer to their jobs (helping downtown population density and resulting in a substantial decrease in the number of vehicle-miles traveled). LAB-certified Platinum cities are pushing 6% cycle commuting in the US; it's not Copenhagen, but it's still good enough to have a serious, measurable financial impact.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agenda_21
The UN plot is right there in the open for all to see. Why won't people wake up to the fact that this undemocratic, internationalist organization is trying to improve the quality of our environment at a LOCAL level? If they can accomplish this, there is little hope for our freedoms.
WAKE UP PEOPLE!!11!!!1eleventy
Also, they did 9/11 by crashing bicycles into the towers.
Hey, I'm a 40-year-old dude who is developing into a fairly serious cyclist.
And let me tell you, a proper set of cycling bib shorts (they have built in suspenders to keep them in place) are AMAZINGLY comfortable.
My daily ride runs between 30-75 km in length, and those shorts are a huge part of how I can stand to do it.
Yes, there is a visual issue... it is getting better as the weight falls off, but yeah, 30lbs ago there was very much a sausage-skin effect going on. That too was motivation to drop more weight.
As soon as you really start to get into this sport, you wind up going full Lycra. And eventually, you start shaving your legs too.
But the wife likes it, and she can't be wrong.
DG
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
The political spectrum in America has shifted so far to the right that pre-80s Republicans and modern-day Democrats are very similar. Eisenhower, Nixon, Theodore Roosevelt, would all be drummed out of the Republican party today for being extreme liberal socialists.
How so, and by what measure do you say this? During Ike's term, defense spending took up 50 percent of the total budget. It's been nowhere near that since then, even during Reagan's term. Ike had an anti-illegal immigration program... Operation Wetback... that actually rounded up illegal Mexicans by the shipfull, and then sailed them down to southern Mexico and dropped them off at their southern borders so they couldn't immediately re-cross our border. Not only was Bush II pro-amnesty, Reagan signed an amnesty that instantly legalized millions of illegals. Reagan made the VA... truly, a socialized medicine scheme... a freakin' cabinet position, and Dubya signed a prescription drug benefit program into law that would have given FDR a boner. Ike, meanwhile, told Americans that if they wanted new services, they'd have to pay for it upfront with new taxes, right now.
Tell me again how much farther to the right Republicans are today? Really? If anything, this is one of the things New Gingrich is actually right about, when he called guys like Bob Dole... who supported Obamacare, by the way... a "tax collector for the welfare state".
And Teddy Roosevelt? How do you think he would have responded to 9/11? I'll lay cash that it wouldn't have been with Dubya's soothing speeches about how "Islam is a religion of peace". The Rough Rider would have turned Mecca into a sea of glass. So enough with the "today's GOP is so extreme" nonsense. Compared to what?
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
An interesting effect of this is that your "left wing" president is in complete lock step with the UK Conservative party which has been accused of being the most right-wing mainstream political party in Europe.
Really? Because Brits think that our President hates their guts. One of the first things he did was to diss the sitting Labour Prime Minister. So you're honestly going to argue that Barack Obama has warm feelings for the Tories?
And just who is it that's "accusing" the UK Conservative Party of being the most right-wing of the mainstream parties in Europe? Would that be, oh.... Labour? I mean, that would be a shock now, wouldn't it?
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Without government...
Whoa, stop right there. Who's arguing for the complete abolition of government? That would be anarchists. Who, from my eyes, tend to be more on the left side of the political spectrum than the right. Conservatives want minimal government, not no government. We couldn't have police or fire or military forces without a government.
... we would have no workplace safety laws, no child labor laws, we would still have segregation in the south, hell, we would still have slavery.
Really, slavery and segration were because of lack of government? Government legalized and protected both. Read the Constitution, and look up the part where slaves are counted as part of a free man for representation purposes. Anarchy didn't give us slavery and Jim Crow. Quite the opposite.
Government is only a problem when the rich are allowed to corrupt the democratic process.
See, that's interesting, because there were these countries... the Soviet Union, The People's Republic of *fill in many countries here*, etc.... they didn't have any rich people... they made a habit of, oh, killing them, and yet, government was very much their problem. Are you saying that having rich people in a country = corrupt governments? Looking at history, do you honestly think corruption would go away if we got rid of all the rich people?
Good government does not end up as evil without help
Which is exactly what the Founders thought. Which is why their distrust of human nature.... not "rich" nature, but human nature... led them to make the federal government a limited government.
and that is what we need to stop, not government itself.
Again, please point out to me who is arguing for the abolition of government?
You want to know what "good" government is? Here it is, in a nutshell:
"A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned - this is the sum of good government. " - Thomas Jefferson
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
... the MSNBC lefty spin vortex ... the NPR Intelligensia Superiore Ruling Class network ... the ABC/NBC/CBS/CNN all-Obama-pats-on-the-back-all-the-time networks ...
Thank you for demonstrating so thoroughly what GPP was talking about.
So there's no leftward lean to traditional MSM outlets?
"An academic study cited frequently showing a liberal media bias in American journalism is The Media Elite,* a 1986 book co-authored by political scientists Robert Lichter, Stanley Rothman, and Linda Lichter. They surveyed journalists at national media outlets such as the New York Times, Washington Post, and the broadcast networks. The survey found that most of these journalists were Democratic voters whose attitudes were well to the left of the general public on a variety of topics, including such hot-button social issues such as abortion, affirmative action, and gay rights. Then they compared journalists' attitudes to their coverage of controversial issues such as the safety of nuclear power, school busing to promote racial integration, and the energy crisis of the 1970s.
The authors concluded that journalists' coverage of controversial issues reflected their own attitudes, and the predominance of political liberals in newsrooms therefore pushed news coverage in a liberal direction. They presented this tilt as a mostly unconscious process of like-minded individuals projecting their shared assumptions onto their interpretations of reality."
You know why Fox exists? Why it has dominating ratings? Because there was such a vacuum in the TV media when it came to anything but left-leaning views that a huge chunk of the public absolutely distrusted what they saw on TV, and a great deal of what they read in papers. And that distrust was warranted considering what we now know... Dan Rather's firing over the faked memos, the New York Times getting pulitzers for guys that basically worked for Joseph Stalin... it's said that nature abhors a vacuum. That's why Fox is so successful. Not because people are suckers, or because of any right-wing conspiracy. If a large part of the public likes beef, but all you'll sell them is chicken, they're going to go elsewhere.
Guys like you seem to think that if you could ban Fox... and Limbaugh and talk radio for that matter.... then suddenly, the scales would fall from people's eyes, and they'd suddenly become liberal. That's part of your problem right there. Fox exists because more Americans are conservative than liberal. The tail isn't wagging the dog here. Ban Fox today, and that same huge portion of American voters aren't going to just submit and watch left-leaning outlets. They're going to go elsewhere and make their own. Blaming Fox for American's conservative views is kind of silly. Fox simply exists because there's a market for them. A large and profitable one.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
The big bad corrupt gubmint confiscates your bicycle, seizes your medicine, and shoots your dog, who ya gonna call? A teacher? A quirky artist? Probably some local lawyer who works harder, and makes less money, than you do.
Why is this on Slashdot? This is the most inappropriate post ever accepted here. I quit. Goodbye, formerly great website.
Interesting to see so many ridicule the guy. If you actually read the original article AND check the ICLEI website, there isn't so much craziness. The only thing I cannot verify is that the bike program is indeed an ICLEI initiative, though it might just as well be if you read about their other initiatives. Otherwise he seems to be spot on: ICLEI is a UN organization (see their About page) and is indeed a supporter of (among other things) Agenda 21 (see Programs page) which incorporates population "policy" (nice word for control, art. 5.3., 5.17, etc., etc.).
I don't see any mention of lizards.. however: "ICLEI was founded in 1990 as the 'International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives'. The Council was established when more than 200 local governments from 43 countries convened at our inaugural conference, the World Congress of Local Governments for a Sustainable Future, at the United Nations in New York."
for the last fucking time - we do NOT have a democracy, we have a Constitutional Republic
I know it's a persistent meme, but we don't get to vote for so many of the policies and actions taken by our "superiors", be they legislative, executive, judicial or administrative, we can't honestly call ourselves a democracy. There are some in the world, precious few, but it's not our "beloved land of the free and the brave". If we had genuine citizen-instituted referenda, with legislative enforcement behind it, then MAYBE we would be a democracy. As it is, we're just a proto-fascist plutocracy, and we're not headed in the right direction...
This is a famous fragment of the Dutch national (NOS) TV news programme from several years back: news reader Harmen Siezen reading a report about a new saddle that gives your balls room to hang in the fresh breeze (Selle Bassano):
Harmen Siezen - zadelpijn (in Dutch) (unfortunately, they don't show the saddle itself in the clip).
To be, or not to be: isn't that quite logical, Slashdot Beta?
"In addition to facilitating private and commercial transportation, [the interstate highway system] would provide key ground transport routes for military supplies and troop deployments in case of an emergency or foreign invasion. Initial federal planning for a nationwide highway system began in 1921, when the Bureau of Public Roads asked the Army to provide a list of roads it considered necessary for national defense. "
Link
-kgj
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH...*starts peeing pants* This is American joke, no? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ca9GuwuOVZc
"The Brady Bunch is back...working homicide"
... is that the numbers simply don't add up so that they achieve anything: http://hembrow.blogspot.com/2010/08/most-expensive-bikes-in-world.html