Keep Your Bicycle Securely Locked at All Times

Our Federal Government is just now finding out that automobile drivers encounter traffic, run their air-conditioners and frequently drive faster than 60mph.

The Environmental Protection Agency, which only now - for model year 2008 - is changing the way it tests mileage for the first time since 1984. The new procedures announced this week will consider a variety of factors collectively known as reality.

These overdue improvements will reduce the average vehicle's estimated mileage - the one that appears on window stickers in the showroom - by 12% for city driving and 8% for highway driving. And, as you could guess, auto makers are not happy about the change. Why? Because it may mean that people will start buying less profitable small cars, instead of house-sized bohemoths; whose drivers actually brag about their car getting 15 miles per gallon.

The beautiful combination of bureaucratic sloth and special interest politics have finally given way to consumer complaints and fact. Geez -- it only took 22 years. Now we know why my 2005 Ford Focus, advertised at 27 city, 32 highway; gets 27.5 miles per gallon on my mostly-highway drive to and from work - without the air conditioning or traffic. I feel so used.

In other stupid news...

RIVERSIDE, Calif. - A high school choir was asked to stop singing Christmas carols during an ice skating show featuring Olympic medalist Sasha Cohen, out of concern the skater would be offended because she's Jewish.
A city staff member, accompanied by a police officer, approached the Rubidoux High School Madrigals at the Riverside Outdoor Ice Skating Rink just as they launched into "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" and requested that the troupe stop singing, the Riverside Press-Enterprise reported Thursday. Mayor Ron Loveridge called the incident "unfortunate." To her credit, Cohen did not request the singers to stop.

This is another case of over-sensitive zealots making life difficult for people. Every day, we see another news story about someone somewhere getting irritated that there's a Nativity scene, or a store employee saying "Merry Christmas" to shoppers. Why don't we just cancel Christmas altogether, if it's going to irritate people so much? If you love somebody, give them a gift. Who needs a phony religious holiday to justify the act? "Happy Holidays" and politically correct songs are a half-assed attempt to make everybody happy, and we know that it isn't possible. If people can't sing a song without aiming to piss off people in government, then what's the point?

The High School rests on tax-exempt property, the carolers were singing for free and the city employees are paid from tax dollars. Anybody see a problem here?

I wanna go...

An artist's rendering provided by Grand Canyon West shows the Hualapai Indian Tribe's Skywalk, a glass-bottom observation deck 4,000 feet above the Colorado River hanging over the western edge of the Grand Canyon. Hualapai Indian tribe is hoping to change its fortunes by building the Skywalk as a tourist attraction. But the $30 million Skywalk, set to open in March 2007, has also ignited a debate among Hualapai elders who question whether the prospect of riches is worth disturbing sacred ground.

Sacred, schmacred. I just wanna drop a coyote off it and watch him open that little umbrella and wave goodbye before he crashes to the ground in a little cloud of dust.