licentious radio

Friday, January 17, 2003
[6:30:13 PM]

Greg Palast on fire.

This is all the best dirt on the Axis of Evil -- the Bush family. How they stole the elections, how Poppy gave a company $10 billion owned by citizens for a measly $10,000 check to the government -- but for huge rewards for himself personally, and for Dim Son's campaign.

Of course the Republican Corporate Media doesn't mention any of this, but that's because they're corrupt, evil bastards.

Don't forget to march for peace tomorrow.

[3:21:47 PM]
Traffic jam hacking [amasci.com].

I played with this a lot, back when I commuted. A lot of times, you can eliminate stop-go-traffic by driving so slowly that the "stop" ahead of you disappears before you get there. But in some circumstances, traffic is too bad for that to be practical.

Aside from accidents, the biggest problem is people changing lanes when traffic is very tight. The commuter lanes here in the SF Bay area encourage eligible commuters to stay in the far left lane until the last possible minute before crossing all the lanes of traffic to reach their exit. I assert that this is the leading cause of stop and go traffic.

Since rush hour traffic is a large portion of the total traffic, and stop-and-go traffic increases pollution dramatically I conclude that commuter lanes add significantly to air pollution. I suspect there are brief periods when this isn't the case, when exactly the right balance is struck between high commuter lane traffic and low traffic on the rest of the highway.

[11:19:26 AM]
Germany bans Islamic group.... Berlin (licentious) -- Germany banned an Islamic group for "inciting hatred", racism against Jews, and opposing a Jewish state in Israel.

Germany -- though a prosperous western European state -- has no explicit constitutional guarantees of freedom of speech. The government regularly prohibits the communication of certain ideas.

When asked why the government didn't ban the state of Israel for inciting hatred, racism against Palestinians, and opposition to a Palestinian state in Palestine, the government minister shrugged and rolled her eyes.