As soon as gas hits $5 this guy will look much more attractive. (Not that he's not a good looking animal.) Plus there's all the 'benefits' for the garden.
Posted on 09/22/2005 10:32:34 AM PDT by logician2u
If You Think Life Without Cars Is Easy, Remember the Big Easy
News Release
by Jody Clarke
September 22, 2005
Washington, DC, September 22, 2005 -- Organizers of today's 'World Car-Free Day' are promoting supposedly more sustainable transportation systems. But according to the Competitive Enterprise Institute, lack of access to cars can be deadly -- as demonstrated by the experience of New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina, where cars, rather than mass transit, were the key to evacuating hundreds of thousands of people.
"It was a lack of access to cars that led tens of thousands of people to remain in the city," says Sam Kazman, head of CEI's Automobility Project. "Many people may well choose a car-free lifestyle, but the notion that government should impose it in the name of sustainability is crazy. As Hurricane Katrina showed, it can be disastrous as well."
Organizers of World Car-Free Day claim it is being celebrated this year by more than 1400 cities and towns in the U.S. and other countries. Their website poses a simple question: "What is life like in communities that are not dependent on the automobile, and what are the benefits of such a way of life?"
But New Orleans' experience has triggered a reexamination of the dangers of such an approach. In an article on his Green Economics blog, economist Matthew Kahn writes: "More of New Orleans' urban poor would have survived the disaster if they had had car access." (One Lesson from New Orleans? More Cars for the Urban Poor.)
As Thoreau Institute analyst Randy O'Toole points out, "Those who fervently wish for car-free cities should take a closer look at New Orleans. The tragedy of New Orleans isn't primarily due to racism or government incompetence, though both played a role. The real cause is automobility -- or more precisely to the lack of it." (Lack of Automobility Key to New Orleans Tragedy)
For more on CEI's work on automobility, see "Cars, Women, and Minorities: The Democratization of Mobility in America," by Alan Pisarski; and "Car-Free Days? No, Thank You," by Waldemar Hanasz.
Major "stuck on stupid syndrome" this group is!
If you are suggesting that the government -- city, state, federal -- is responsible for evacuating everyone, you are asking for trouble. They haven't the resources, and if they did . . would you want to risk your life on it?
BTW, it's been discussed often on this forum that New Orleans did have an emergency plan in place which wasn't followed. Sometimes the best-laid plans get shunted aside in emergencies, unfortunately.
Oh, so you suggest that when you get welfare benefits you should get a free car with that?
Emergency plans "Shunted aside" in the very emergency it was designed for. Brilliant logic there, logician.
How many of the thousands stuck in the Super Dome were on welfare? Do you know?
How many white people in New Orleans are on welfare? Do you know that?
What percent of New Orleans families have a car? Do you know that?
Find the answers and then maybe you'll have something intelligent to say next time.
I didn't drive my car today. I took the van instead.
The only constant in emergency plans is they are never "designed" for every emergency.
Just watch. After they've drained all the bilgewater out of New Orleans and the politicians get together and congratulate themselves for saving X number of lives, the first thing they'll want to do is "update" their emergency plan. This to incorporate "lessons learned" from Katrina.
You and I know it's all BS, a filling-in-the squares exercise, probably required in order to get federal funds for some project that will never happen now that HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS will be spent to rebuild that which, in a saner period, would not have been built the first time.
Am I a skeptic? You bet! (And I would be just as skeptical if the Mayor of New Orleans were a Republican.)
Back to the topic of his thread, it's vitally important that Americans not get suckered into believing they can get along without their own private means of transportation. You can go along for years hitching rides with friends, riding buses and paying taxi fare. But when disaster looms, when you really need a car, you'd better have one.
(I hope you didn't carry passengers.)
Maybe nudists?
LOL, some folks (mostly found at the DU) forget that the stock market fluctuates daily, hourly, by the minute and many people are counting on this, so they can make a profit. We gassed up and took a road trip on the last boycott cars day. It was a lot of fun, we were doing our part to spur economic growth, a concept lost on some lefties.
So that's what the 'HP' on the side of my car is for!! ;-)
Sometimes I feel like my Ford runs on that principle!
Somehow, I doubt the enviros pushing these "car-free" days would prefer we all used four-legged transportation, either. As I alluded to above, they are mostly pedalgogues.
Is that bodies he is loading there?
Just after work -- twice.
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