The bikepaths and walking paths: Hazardous due to dummies

As it is that time of year again, I just want to revisit a couple previous rants about how people use the pathways in my city - any city probably; apparently stupidity is a prerequisite for using pathways if the number of clued-out (mostly walkers) is any indication.

My city has just posted a request for volunteers to contribute to pathway improvements - a great idea. Sad to say the city hasn't considered many of the probably thousands of recommendations they receive daily.

The comments below are expanded on those I've just posted to the comment board on the volunteer request page (this is the link to the page).

I am a regular user of the city's pathways. I bike. I have a speedometre; I wear a helmet; I have a bell and I use it; I always use my voice in conjunction with my bell (although neither is effective to signal my approach to those people who can't function without their ears stuffed with speakers and their music turned up full blast. Those idiots are reckless, safety-flaunting cads).

The reality is most pathway users are in DESPERATE need of education on HOW to use the pathways. So here are the rules and yes, if I could make these laws, I would.

Unless there is no alternative;

• pathways with yellow lines are for BIKES and SKATERS;
• unmarked pathways are for WALKERS.

Just like on roads built for vehicles (that would be cars, trucks and motorcycles and yes, bicycles, which are considered 'motorized' vehicles when using roadways), lines painted on the pavement mean something - like "THIS IS THE CENTRE OF THE ROAD; STAY ON YOUR SIDE."

STAY to the RIGHT! Yes, walkers, you too. Fine; your group numbers six people; they all must stay to the right. Try two-by-two.

This also applies to city sidewalks, malls, escalators, elevators, buses and the C-train (when entering and departing); if people would simply walk to the right, it would massively lessen congestion and confusion.

If you're on skates or a bike, SIGNAL your approach by using your voice or a bell. Don't just blow by people who may not hear you! "ON YOUR LEFT" or "PASSING ON YOUR LEFT" are the correct warnings. USE them.

Those of you addicted to in-ear music: if you're dumb enough to be on a pathway (or driving!) in moving traffic that you prevent yourself from hearing, you're probably going to at least be yelled at by someone who almost hits you and you're also likely to be injured when you meander across the line and you're hit by a biker or skater you couldn't hear coming.

Turn your music down and only use ONE in-ear speaker. For the record, earbuds/earphones are illegal when driving for exactly that reason; you can't hear what's coming.

When you hear a biker or skater coming MOVE RIGHT.

YOUR RIGHT.

That would be the right that moves you AWAY from the centre line and TOWARDS the edge of the pathway.

You don't have to leave the path; just move to your right to give a moving vehicle the space they need to safely pass you.

It hurts to be hit by a bike travelling at 20Kms so don't be all pissy about it, just move right.

The speed limit is 20kms MAX; not 40 because you're in training (if you really were, you'd be on the road or on a track somewhere) or you're showing off how fit (but stupid) you are; or because you think you're more awesome than other humans.

20kms max.

If you don't have a speedometre on your bike you suck because they're inexpensive and useful; they also track mileage. Not having one doesn't make you sooo cool; it proves you're an idiot.

If you stop moving, get OFF the pathway! That's right. Simply step off to allow moving traffic to continue moving. It's like using your driveway or parking at the curb; it leaves the roadway clear, prevents you from being hit and shows that you're not a complete idiot like those six people stopped in the centre of the bike path up there....

And PLEASE make sure it is safe to stop. Don't just stop short! Pathways are transportation routes - meaning you have to signal lane changes, passing and stopping. Shoulder checking is ESSENTIAL!

Stopping dead without making sure it is safe to do so (because your body isn't equipped with signals and brake lights) means you're one of THOSE people who lives like they're alone on the planet or believes that everyone is always paying attention to them, which means they need treatment for narcissism.

Dogs and children MUST be under control at all times.

For dogs that means ON LEASH; for kids, that means they're within reach or holding your hand.

If I hit your so-cute, so-well-behaved, off-leash dog that just ran into the path of my bike (because you've conveniently ignored the DOGS ON LEASH ONLY sign), I'm not going to be sorry for you but I will be very sad for your dog - that it has a neglectful owner who didn't look to the dog's safety. "He's a good dog" is NOT a safety strategy.

Same for your children; if you're walking on a BIKE path and you're not keeping your children IN SIGHT and ON THE RIGHT, they will be hurt for sure. Grow up, be an adult and observe the rules that are in place to keep you and your babes SAFE!

If there's a walking path - and there usually is one about 10 feet away from the bike path - USE IT! You wouldn't walk your children or dogs down the middle of a busy street, so why would you walk them down a busy BIKE path?

If all this advice pisses you off, stay off the pathways because you are a hazard to yourself and others.

If this advice makes sense and you understand it will keep you, your animals and your children safe, congratulations, you may use the pathways.

Thanks for the soapbox
WW

As it turns out, sunscreen is not only poison, preventing the sun is killing us.

Those of you who know me - or have read this blog for any length of time - know how much I disagree with the application of chemicals to the skin and to the invasion of Big Pharma into our lives.

I found the following article about lack of sun exposure and its devastating relationship to cancer and other serious health complications on Goop, Gwyneth Paltrow's site. I agree with about 90% of it, this part in particular:

"...I recommend moderate sunbathing... Vitamin D supplements provide the same benefits as sunshine (in terms of Vitamin D needs). But, if taken in too large a dose, they can cause Vitamin D toxicity, whereas sun exposure does not."

30 years of warnings - which can be traced directly back to manufacturers of sunscreen and their corporate financial goals - have left people sick, much more prone to cancers and, not mentioned here, MUCH higher rates of MS and who knows what blood-borne damage due to application of chemicals to porous skin.

Our bodies are excellently evolved to protect us from the elements first, but secondly to USE the elements to keep us healthy. From Wikipedia, this is the function of a tan:

"As a defense against UV radiation, the amount of the brown pigment melanin in the skin increases when exposed to moderate (depending on skin type) levels of radiation; this is commonly known as a sun tan. The purpose of melanin is to absorb UV radiation and dissipate the energy as harmless heat, blocking the UV from damaging skin tissue. UVA gives a quick tan that lasts for days by oxidizing melanin that was already present and triggers the release of the melanin from melanocytes. UVB on the other hand yields a tan that takes roughly 2 days to develop because it stimulates the body to produce more melanin. The photochemical properties of melanin make it an excellent photoprotectant.
Sunscreen chemicals on the other hand cannot dissipate the energy of the excited state as efficiently as melanin and therefore the penetration of sunscreen ingredients into the lower layers of the skin increases the amount of free radicals and reactive oxygen species (seriously?? does that sound like a good idea?)"

An article in the Seattle Times points to what looks like an obvious connection between lack of sun and MS.
"A growing body of evidence suggests [lack of sun exposure] can raise your risk of cancer, increase susceptibility to heart attack, diabetes and other disorders, and at least partly account for the region's sky-high rates of multiple sclerosis."

Sunburns are certainly not good for the skin but the sun itself - and the body's ability to tan and therefore 'metabolize' sun - is absolutely necessary and critical to a body's health. Responsibly taking the sun means that the skin will activate its highly developed protective feature - tanning - while allowing the body to process vitamin D in a radically more accessible way than by taking supplements, which can easily be consumed to toxic, damaging levels.

As I've said before, if a product - vitamin D, sunscreen, drugs of many types - comes with expensive TV advertising or similar 'push' campaigns, it is suspect.

Paltrow says in her newsletter that not only was she ill enough to check in with both her western and eastern doctors, she was discovered to have the lowest amounts of vitamin D they'd ever seen. She also admits to being what I'd call phobic about staying utterly out of the sun. She is the poster-girl for who sick it can make a person to buy in to big pharma and its little buddy the sunscreen peddlers.

Go outside, get some sun and yes, get a tan. It IS good for you. READ ON.

God is Imaginary

Just got this great blog via Twtter, which is now if first place for where to find out anything, with CBC following behind....

God Is Imaginary. Some people need to be convinced of this. I don't know why intelligent humans feel the need to live in fear of an invisible 'guy' and why they think that stuff written by very unscientific, untravelled tribesmen 2000 years ago is a relevant way to live a modern life, but need they do.

I will assert - with proof if necessary - however, that most religious people know very little about what they say they believe, know almost nothing about their religious texts (I'm referring mostly to the christian bible here, having little experience with the Q'ran, but that too because it is ALSO crap), and have no answers for the questions us supposedly uneducated atheists/humanists/free-thinkers put to them. Except that most of us can quote their bible at them until their empty heads spin....

This really fun blog does exactly that; it quotes directly from the christian bible and then points out exactly how the christians themselves prove their 'god' does not exist.

Have fun. If you're sensitive to having the proverbial crap kicked out of what you think you believe, get in there, read and rebutt. But please, take a comfy chair; that's a big ol' corner you're about to paint yourself into.

After you're done reading that stuff, read this so you can know how absolutely terrifying christian minds are. Shite Fundies Say

The OUT Campaign

May I just say a gracious and heart-felt thanks to my immediate family, the religious and non-religious alike who, quite unwittingly, opened the door to my first questioning religion, leaving it and now standing firmly against it.

I make a point here which must not be lost: I said religion, which comes with fear, lies, and dogma, and which by its very nature is divisive and fosters me versus you: I did NOT say faith.

In my country, our constitution protects our right to - and freedom from - religion. Following on that, I believe that any time religion ventures outside its rightful place - in the home or the place of worship (and I mean to include it venturing forth in form of clothing or symbols as well) - it contravenes a fundamental part of our constitution; my freedom FROM religion and the rights my country confers on me to be from from religion and to never suffer discrimination for that freedom. Sadly, that is not reality as the religious feel it is their duty to call me names, belittle me and attack my intelligence and credibility.

That said, I am, I find, part of a growing, ever more vocal, educated, informed and supportive international group of individuals who are free from religion themselves but are at the forefront of a movement that requires religion and those to adhere to such fantasies to account for their beliefs and actions.

You can find me on Twitter at @writerwriter. You will also find Jim Gardner, @MovingToMontana, and his excellent blog, How Good is That?, and @ZachsMind. I encourage you to follow the atheists you'll find in my lists (on my Twitter profile, page right).

You will also find a huge resource of like-minded writers and individuals via Dr. R Dawkins site and through The OUT Project.

10 Point BS Detector Kit!

This is for those who think the Bible should be followed litterally.

I'm officially calling all those uneducated, conformist freaks who think the bible is the uncontested, incontrovertible, word of 'god.' I call bullshit but I'll let this letter to the adulterous, affair-having, racist Dr. Laura (of the naked pictures on the Internet) Schlesinger do it for me.

Now. For those of you reading this who say, "Well, the old testament isn't in effect any more," may I, heathen that I am, correct you.

See, the problem with 'believers' is that instead of actually knowing what they're talking about, they rely on marginally educated automatons who call themselves 'religious leaders' and who deliver what information won't contradict what other information they've already delivered to their SHEEP... So here's the critical piece.

“For truly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass the law until all is accomplished. Whoever then relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but he who does them and teaches them shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven”-Matthew 5:18-19 RSV

So, it looks like you're gonna have to buy slaves, kill your neighbours and y'know go all biblical on people's asses... it's gonna suck though because, as much as religious idiots say "this is a christian country," the laws we have here do not agree: Stoning your male neighbours or your brother because they cut their sideburns is very much frowned upon in the Canadian Criminal Code. So is selling your daughters into slavery and so is slavery itself. SO.... you're kinda snookered, I'd say... but then, if you err on the side of it all being such a load of horse shit, you're probably going to live a far less stressful, fear-filled life. THIS life. Not the supposed afterlife.

But I digress....

In her radio show, Dr Laura Schlesinger said that, as an Orthodox Jew, she believes that homosexuality is an abomination (according to Leviticus 18:22) and cannot be condoned under any circumstance. The following response is an open letter to Dr. Laura, penned by a US resident, which was posted on the Internet. It's funny, as well as informative:

Dear Dr. Laura:

Thank you for doing so much to educate people regarding God's Law. I have learned a great deal from your show, and try to share that knowledge with as many people as I can. When someone tries to defend the homosexual lifestyle, for example, I simply remind them that Leviticus 18:22 clearly states it to be an abomination ... End of debate.

I do need some advice from you, however, regarding some other elements of God's Laws and how to follow them.

1. Leviticus 25:44 states that I may possess slaves, both male and female, provided they are purchased from neighboring nations. A friend of mine claims that this applies to Mexicans, but not Canadians. Can you clarify? Why can't I own Canadians?

2. I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair price for her?

3. I know that I am allowed no contact with a woman while she is in her period of Menstrual uncleanliness - Lev.15: 19-24. The problem is how do I tell? I have tried asking, but most women take offense.

4. When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a pleasing odor for the Lord - Lev.1:9. The problem is my neighbors. They claim the odor is not pleasing to them. Should I smite them?

5. I have a neighbor who insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly states he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself, or should I ask the police to do it?

6. A friend of mine feels that even though eating shellfish is an abomination (Lev. 11:10), it is a lesser abomination than homosexuality. I don't agree. Can you settle this? Are there 'degrees' of abomination?

7. Lev. 21:20 states that I may not approach the altar of God if I have a defect in my sight. I have to admit that I wear reading glasses. Does my vision have to be 20/20, or is there some wiggle-room here?

8. Most of my male friends get their hair trimmed, including the hair around their temples, even though this is expressly forbidden by Lev. 19:27. How should they die?

9. I know from Lev. 11:6-8 that touching the skin of a dead pig makes me unclean, but may I still play football if I wear gloves?

10. My uncle has a farm. He violates Lev.19:19 by planting two different crops in the same field, as does his wife by wearing garments made of two different kinds of thread (cotton/polyester blend). He also tends to curse and blaspheme a lot. Is it really necessary that we go to all the trouble of getting the whole town together to stone them? (Lev.24:10-16). Couldn't we just burn them to death at a private family affair, like we do with people who sleep with their in-laws? (Lev. 20:14)

I know you have studied these things extensively and thus enjoy considerable expertise in such matters, so I'm confident you can help.

Thank you again for reminding us that God's word is eternal and unchanging.

Your adoring fan.

James M. Kauffman, Ed.D. Professor Emeritus, Dept. Of Curriculum, Instruction, and Special Education University of Virginia

(It would be a damn shame if we couldn't own a Canadian :)

MORE:

How to catch a Christian in the act:

When you see them expounding a verse and ignoring another, call them on it. I know what you’ll hear. They’ll say, “that’s from the Old Law and we aren’t under the Old Law anymore”.

Trip them with this: “But aren’t the Ten Commandments part of the Old Law?” “Yes, but we are obligated to follow them because they are reported in the NT” (Matthew 19:16-18, Mark 10:17-19 & Luke 18:18-22).

Immediately point out to them that Jesus omitted half of the Ten Commandments and invented a new one, “though shall not defraud!” Before they can get a word in edge wise finish them off with: “According to scripture it is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than one tittle of law to fail” (Luke 16:17 & Matthew 5:18-19).

If sin is transgression of the law, as 1 John 3:4 says, then you should be following all of the Old Law. This, from experience, is the best way to shoot down these idiots and bar them from getting away with their hypocrisy. (from www.evilbible.com).

In your face with the burka (Calgary Herald, 12 May 2010, Page A13)

Dear Christpher Hitchens: I love your brain.

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In your face with the burka
Christopher Hitchens Christopher Hitchens is a columnist for Vanity Fair and Slate Magazine, where this column originally appeared
Calgary Herald
12 May 2010

The French legislators who seek to repudiate the wearing of the veil or the burka — whether the garment covers “only” the face or the entire female body — are often described as seeking to impose a “ban.” To the contrary, they are attempting to lift a...read more...

Related:
In your face
In your face
In your face

Tech Tags: Calgary Herald newspaper THE EDITORIAL PAGE

Get RID of Stephen Harper

Stephen Harper is, by virtue of being 'religious,' and entertaining religious fanatics and their crazy, crazy ideals, has proven himself to be utterly unqualified to hold public office, let alone run a country.

Religion has no place ANYWHERE outside one's private residence but absolutely NOT in the political arena.

Those who believe in invisible floaty god thingies are welcome to their delusions IN PRIVATE.

Religion of any kind - has NO place on the public stage and absolutely NO place anywhere near the development of laws, or any kind of policy.

The 'religious' know so very little about what they believe, where it comes from and how extensively manipulated, reinterpreted and cashed-in-upon their 'faith' is and that refusal to know is the very detail that should disqualify them from participation in anything to do with politics.

HOW is it that people who are terrified of extremists and want to 'democratise' societies where politics is based on religion do NOT see the same thing happening here?

No matter what name it has - or what name given the invisible man - religion and religious fanatics are dangerous, false, deluded and ridiculous no matter what country they're living in.

The fact that the current Canadian PM has any truck at all with these fools should be enough to oust him. Anyone who buys in to fantasy cannot, by virtue of accepting that fantasy, be qualified to run a country.

Talking snakes, invisible men, zombies indeed. SERIOUSLY people.

By the way, this is how 'christians' are supposed to treat other people:

Deuteronomy 7:1-2

When the Lord your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess and drives out before you many nations . . . then you must destroy them totally. Make no treaty with them, and show them no mercy.

20:10-17

When you march up to attack a city, make its people an offer of peace. If they accept and open their gates, all the people in it shall be subject to forced labor and shall work for you. If they refuse to make peace and they engage you in battle, lay siege to that city. When the Lord your God delivers it into your hand, put to the sword all the men in it. As for the women, the children, the livestock and everything else in the city, you may take these as plunder for yourselves. . . . This is how you are to treat all the cities that are at a distance from you and do not belong to the nations nearby. However, in the cities of the nations the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes. Completely destroy them—the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites—as the Lord your God has commanded you.

And for those of you who are so uneducated and unread to say 'oh, that's old testament,' well, your 'son of god' himself said that not one word of the old laws could be changed until he returns. Unless those people who thought Michael Jackson was the messiah are right....

From Evilbible.com, Christians are Hypocrites page:

"Lastly, Jesus, who clearly is of greater importance than Paul, said the Old Law was to remain in force until heaven and earth passed away and all is accomplished (“For truly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass the law until all is accomplished. Whoever then relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but he who does them and teaches them shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven”-Matthew 5:18-19 RSV). Heaven and earth still exist and many prophecies are not yet fulfilled. How many times have you heard some lame ass Christian say “the Old testament doesn’t matter, Jesus was the lamb and abolished it”? Don’t let them get away with this shit for even the bible says that they should still be following the Old Law."

Sarah Palin is a revisionist LIAR!!

I am Canadian. Until Sarah Palin arrived on the scene, complete with NO education, despite having attended and having failed to graduate from ANY of the five institutions she attended, US politics was simply a source of hilarity.

However, as that uneducated, uninformed, floaty-god-thingie-believing nutbag is now trying to become president ....

Palin, who is the first to say how dangerous fundamentalists are - by which she means brown people who are Muslim - said the other night that US laws should be based on the bible, as per the desires of the founding fathers.

WHAT???? Is she incapable of reading or is she actively and consciously revising history in hopes of garnering the support of the spelling-and-logic impaired Teabagging idiots that are the modern incarnation of the separate southern states?

Here's the article.

PALIN WANTS BIBLE AS BASIS FOR US LAW
Newswire Services
May 08, 2010
An Atheist public policy groups today sharply criticized remarks by former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who appeared on the Bill O'Reilly Factor Thursday night and called for U.S. law to be based on the Judeo-Christian Bible.

Palin, who was the Republican candidate for Vice President in 2008, is reportedly considering a run for the White House in 2012 or beyond.

During her interview, Palin gushed: "I think we should keep this clean, keep it simple, go back to what our founders and our founding documents meant," adding, "They´re quite clear that we would create law based on the God of the Bible and the Ten Commandments."

Dr. Ed Buckner, President of American Atheists said that Palin's remarks displayed a breathtaking lack of knowledge about the evolution of law and American history. "If we didn't know better, we might conclude that Sarah Palin's 'education' was somehow carried out in Texas using textbooks that the Texas Board of Education is now trying to fabricate."

"Our Constitution and Bill of Rights are not based on the Bible; and the Founders, some of whom were religious, nevertheless advocated separation between government and religion. In fact, Thomas Jefferson wrote in an official letter as President of the need for a 'wall of separation' between church and state. Jefferson also wrote explicitly about the falsehood that our laws are based on the Ten Commandments."


Buckner noted that key documents like the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence do not refer to the Judeo-Christian Bible or to a particular religious view. As he said, "The Constitution, our basic charter, is historically noteworthy because, for the first time in human history a significant governing charter was issued that did not invoke any deities or supernatural authority at all. It is declared in the name of 'We the people,' not in the name of Jesus or Allah or Buddha. Ms. Palin, the United States has never been a theocracy--and now would be a terrible time to change that."

Dave Silverman, Vice President and Communications Director for American Atheists, said that Palin's poorly-informed comments were a signal that her future campaigns "may end up playing the 'religion card' in order to win votes."

"Palin and her allies on the religious right will continue to capitalize on wedge-issues like the role of religion in American society, even if means grievously distorting our nation's history," said Silverman."

If you are a voting citizen in the USA, you MUST - and it is your civic, ethical and moral duty - contest this woman and you MUST also challenge her - and the teabaggers - conscious and planned destruction of your constitution.

Do NOT wait. Write letters, scream, yell, talk to your neighbours and teach your kids to read so they will not join the ranks of the stupid-by-choice.

The Pope is at the centre of the Catholic Sex Scandal. Which Pope???

It seems that child abuse flies under the radar in the church - any church - but this one particularly. I suspect (with utterly no evidence to support the suspicion) that if there is no penetration, the catholic church does not consider sex to be sex: therefore, molesting little boys and girls doesn't count....

This is supported, however, by what I know to be the practice of 'chaste' sex among pre-married or unmarried catholic couples. Everything but penetration goes....

I'm willing to wager there is all manner of means by which these deprived and depraved priests mitigate in their minds what they're doing and the damage done to these little ones.

Sex is sex is sex; however one engages, which parts one puts into action, if the genitals are involved, it's sex, call it what you will.

Where it comes to children, however, it is sexual assault, sexual abuse and rape.

The Catholic church has, for centuries, found any loophole it can where it comes to sex and that's what makes the whole thing so stinky. One can no more tell a human body to cease breathing than one can order the human body to ignore other necessary functions.