I wanted to comment on Mitch’s Over Celling post, specifically Jonathan’s last comment, but the comment mushroomed, so I’ll turn it into a post. There is a very interesting report from the NHTSA and a group of VA Tech academics that put cameras in cars, recording the behavior (and consequences of that behavior) of 241 drivers over the course of a year. The consequences were grouped into the categories crashes, near-crashes, and “incidents” They take quite a bit of space to define “incident”, so if you’re interested, go take a gander at the report itself. If you look at this data, especially Figure 11-9 on page 293, I think the conclusion is pretty inescapable that cell phones are a major contributing factor to vehicle accidents.
Month: July 2006
Chet Baker, “Let’s Get Lost”
(Let me be the nine-millionth person to praise the infinite awesomeness of You Tube.)
Quote of the Day
My own guess is that the long-awaited second front (shades of Overlord) will wait on three key things: 1) the strengthening of the Iraqi government; 2) the rebuild of our intel and covert capabilities; and 3) the elections in 2006 and 2008. Just as internal politics plays a huge role in the Jihad it plays a major role in the West. There is a war in the West; a real war. Its principal weapons are ideas, speech, education, politics. Most conservatives are picking up those weapons for the first time, in an ideological sense at least. And they are still very much inferior, man-for-man to the seasoned fighters of the Left. But it’s getting more even all the time.
The True Voice of Jacksonian America
A good post on The Adventures of Chester entitled “Discussion Topic: Defeat”, had some very good comments. This one jumped out at me:
I recently went down to buy some hay for the Horses at the local agri dealer which by the way is near the Volunteer fire station and the site of course for local elections.
The consensus there is We don’t know what is going on! with Bush, democrates, The war.
All say the democrates don’t field a person respected or believed enough to be voted for, All say Bush has screwed the pooch on this war.
All state Kerry is a jackass and Gore not trusted.
All state Islam is the enemy and many say Islam is the work of Satan.
The Immigrant problem is a hot button. less immigration is the idea.
One old WW 2 vet who fought with the 506 PIR 101 AA Div said, “This is the damnedest way He ever seen to fight a war.” Half the government and the population is rootin’ for the other side!
I think We will eventually win this war (by open warfare on a scale not seen before) though not in my lifetime and I am 53 but before we win we are going to get our collective asses kicked and a whole lot of folks are going to die.
Somebody up there in D. C. needs to get their shiite in one bag and get their asses in gear.
otherwise we might as well accept Sharia now and get it over with.
A message to the politicians in charge, “quit politicin’ and fight the real enemy”
I am near total agreement with this.
In particular, I think the phrase “by open warfare on a scale not seen before” is likely to be an apt one.
Whatever it takes.