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It’s been one of those days when I wonder what, if anything, else can go wrong.

I laid the bike down (gently at least) and strained myself picking it up.

I found out that a major deadline that I thought was at the *end* of October is actually at the *beginning*.

WestHost, my Web site provider, somehow killed my page counter again (after I’d written one specifially to be idiotproof). I think I’m well over a million hits on my home page– but who can tell?

In the afternoon, the bike wouldn’t start, so I had to take the bus home (carrying all my gear of course).

When I got home I found that my roof had been leaking, and that plumbers had broken into my place at the behest of the guy downstairs (who, to be fair, was also getting leaked on).

Just to show that I’m still young and hip and trendy, though, I’m blaming it all on Global Warming.

I am sick unto death of the double standard the SEC officials apply to the Gators. It’s like we’ve never been forgiven for having the gall to upset the Alabama dynasty.

Saturday, Louis Murphy was flagged by the officials for doing an small, understated Gator chomp after scoring a touchdown. And the flag came down *right now*, like the guy had his hand on the flag waiting.

That’s fine. But you know what? I want that same call *every time* an opposing team does the Gator chomp on us after _they_ make a good play.

There simply isn’t any excuse for the SEC officials not to do that. What’s good for the Gator is good for everyone else.

So you may have noticed that I’ve added the ability to digg articles on my blog, based on a request from a reader (who may have simply been a spam-bot, I still don’t know).

The reaction thus far has been underwhelming. I submitted a trio of articles myself, just to bootstrap things, but I feel dirty afterward. :)

I’ll likely just leave them for a few days, and see if any activity shows up. But they’re kind of distracting, so if nothing seems to be happening, it’ll be time to fire up the old e-chainsaw [yinnnggg yINnnnnng chug chug chug chug chug chug]

*Update:* I changed from digg to StumbleUpon, as the topics seemed more appropriate to the forum.

One has to be careful criticizing laws that are meant to protect law enforcement personnel.

But Florida’s Move Over Act, to paraphrase Creighton, is one of the worst ideas in the long sad history of bad ideas.

I don’t mean the intent is bad, of course. I mean the law will never achieve the intent, and therefore the law is bad. Motorists cannot be blamed for violating the law if the hazard appears too quickly for them to react.

Rather than attempting to legislate what should be common sense, the public and the law enforcement community would be better served by creating better visibility of local emergency events, such as a vehicle blocking a lane of traffic.

One way to do this might be to erect a bright flashing red and blue light on a portable, retractable tower, perhaps something akin to the towers used by remote television broadcast vans, or perhaps on a standalone tripod support.

Another way might be to raise such a light with a quickly-inflatable balloon, tethered to the law enforcement vehicle.

It might even be conceivable to combine the two ideas, to provide maximum visibility.

The point is to give motorists more than a few seconds’ notice that they are approaching a temporary hazard.

That will do far more to protect the public and law enforcement than an impractical, unpublicized, and nearly-unenforceable law. “Move Over” should be relegated to the scrapheap of history, as soon as possible.

Looking back at runaway housing inflation, and seeing the breadth of spec development that it spawned, and wondering how severe the impact is going to be when it all collapses, I came up with what is in retrospect a brilliant idea:

Tie development impact fees to the prime lending rate.

The lower the lending rate goes, the higher the impact fees. That would help put a governor on the misperception of instant riches to be found in unrestrained development.

There’s some applicable saying about “hindsight”, but there’s another one involving a barn door and a horse.

Toppled in the median near my home, roots to the sky, lies a very expensive tree.

Not expensive merely because it was a fully-grown palm, which means a price tag in four digits, possibly five.

Expensive because, in this case, it cost two Gainesville teens their lives.

When the median decorations first went up people complained that they were dangerous, that they blocked the view of oncoming traffic, that they could become obstacles in an accident.

No one listened.

Perhaps they’re listening now.

*Roads are not parks.* They are not Commons for grazing. They are not opportunities for beautification. They are tools, and any beauty they possess derives primarily from their functionality.

From that perspective, our roads are uncommonly ugly.

It seems that we have all the money in the world to build bike lanes, and sidewalks, and landscaped medians, and curbs, and fancy illuminated “No Turn On Red” signs, and intersection cameras, and so on and so on.

When asked to make the roads actually work, to make traffic actually *flow* for a change, our commissioners and the DOT turn out their pockets and weep big crocodile tears and moan, “Poor! Poor!”

It’s time for a change. Now we are not merely wasting money. Now we are not merely wasting citizens’ time.

Now we are paying with lives.

We must make the roads functional and safe. No more games. No more hidden agendae. No more political maneuvering.

I’ve been complaining about this problem for some time.

No one listened.

Perhaps they’re listening now.

The no-name, non-tropical storm currently spinning off the Jacksonville coast has been driving the detritus of fires in the area down our way with gale force.

Impressively visible on the satellite, conditions here were terrible yesterday, with smoke masking the sun and covering everything like a thick yellow fog.

Ash fell like snowflakes, landing on any horizontal surface, getting in your eyes and lungs.

At one point I though the sun would never shine out of this ash hole again.