"Socialism" is the new "liberal"

Liberals stopping being afraid of being called liberal, so now the fuckers go on and on about socialism. Fine with me. Let's see how that works out for the wingnuts.

David Hembrow is the best blogger ever

Look, we all know we're going to have to give up cars. It's going to happen. We'll run out oil, or we'll get serious about climate change, or maybe we'll be smart and give up the cars before we have to. If you're James Howard Kunstler it's the end of the world. But I think we can adapt, and be better off for it.

Lucky for us the Dutch and the Danes have a head start on us. And also lucky for us, David Hembrow is sharing with the English-speaking world what your average Netherlander already knows: how life on a bike is better than life sitting in traffic. It's all on his blog, A view from the cycle path. Hembrow writes against the myths and confusions about biking. He also makes terrific short films of real people, wearing normal clothes, biking just because it's the best way to get around:



Here are a few of his posts that I especially liked: Three types of safety, Anatomy of a reliable, everyday bicycle, and School buses.

In America when people talk about bikes they get deadlocked into grim positions about whether people should bike in traffic or in the sidewalk, whether they need to wear special defensive equipment, whether it's safe or not (in America, it's not), etc. Most people won't put up with that, and as a result, most cyclists in America are daring men under 35. It's hard to imagine an environment where everybody, male and female, young and old would feel safe cycling. But after reading Hembrow's blog and watching his videos, it all seems so obvious.