Bicycle haiku and other bicycle blog madness

Frank has an nice winter CX baiku in Illinois. He also pointed me to a old set of baikus from last summer.

Carlton talks about "get off the road for your own safety" individuals in the Netherlands(!), India and Nazi Germany. Perhaps there's a connection with this "bicycle neglect". Alan makes the point that the American Automobile Association -- which is a motorist lobbying group -- has more than 300 times the membership of bicycling advocacy groups. He writes:

In fact, cyclists are so utterly overpowered that the motoring interests hardly even have to show up. In Olympia and Salem, according to leading cycling advocates, the trucking, development, and manufacturing industries lobby fairly heavily on transportation issues. But car manufacturers, car dealers, and auto clubs rarely flex their muscle. Says [Bicycle Alliance of Washington executive director Gordon] Black, “They don’t have to show up very often, because they know the government is doing their bidding. They don’t feel threatened. They don’t see us as a threat.”

CycleDog points us to an online driving test. I scored 95%.

Now let's ge to the boring news: Diesel shortages in South Dakota, North Dakota (in spite of record production at the state's lone refinery) and Iowa, where the presidential hopefuls are stumping for the January caucus. There's even a shortage of hops for beer manufacture. The state of Connecticut plans for fuel shortages. Some French equestrians are pushing horses for transportation. And in Zimbabwe, a brand new biodiesel factory isn't quite living up to the hype. One of the problems? Not enough feedstock to go around: the farmers have to choose between starvation or running their cars, trucks, generators and irrigation pumps.