DISQUS

Driving safely at 130 mph or more is quite possible in most parts of the country, and it isn't all that difficult, either.

Once, a few years ago, I drove from Lawrence, KS, to Columbia, MO, via K-10/I-435/I-70, 165 miles in 95 minutes, averaging 104 mph. I've also driven at high speeds all across the Midwest, where roads are wide and traffic usually sparse. So I have some idea of what's involved in driving safely at high speed on American roadways. (Mainly it's set the cruise at 125 and curse at traffic.)

The essential problem is that most people never learn how to drive safely. They get their licenses out of a Crackerjack-box DMV which hands them out like candy to anyone who can drive 25 mph, pretend to use turn signals and parallel park.

Driving schools exist all over the country which teach the skills needed for safe high speed driving, but the knowledge is too specialized and not generally available to the average person. The irony is that you can learn the essentials of what you need to know in a few days of classroom instruction and track driving, while America's high schools spend months to teach teenagers how to "drive." It's a complete waste of your property tax dollars and it benefits no one.

Oh, did I mention speed limits in most areas are set far too low? Even the average untrained driver who's been on the road for a while can manage to drive safely at 75-80 mph in rush hour traffic. The highways are designed for it. But the bureaucracy makes too much money on "speeding" fines (levied against people who were probably driving too slowly!) to set highway speed limits at reasonable levels.

My site also dropped from PR6 to PR4, though I've seen only about a 5% drop in traffic over the last month.

Interestingly, I sort of knew something like this was coming since my AdSense revenues have been down almost 50% over the last month. Fortunately it is not my sole source of income.

Oh sure. It's just that MySpace makes it dead easy for stupid people to reach a worldwide audience without spending a dime.

I pay a LOT of money every month to bring my stupidity to a worldwide audience. :)

What are you trying to say, Vinnie? :)

I'm happy to help. After all, what's life without accents? :)

Of course it works with 2.1. It worked with 2.1 before 2.0 was even released! :)

Barack Obama as President is truly frightening. Then again, so is just about anyone else as President. But I digress.

This is valuable information for those people who are planning to run hundreds of feeds through FeedBurner. But much of it doesn't really apply to those of us with, say, four or five. I don't think that was terribly clear, though I figured it out from context.

Ah. I never read wp-hackers; it's too noisy and I already get far too much mail.

A template with a meta refresh in it?

On an unrelated note, who's Andy Beard? :)

Now, see, the reason I left NYC was I wasn't invited to this oh-so-exclusive event!

Then again...

Of course, at one of many other Starbucks locations throughout the city. I've since arrived safely back home...

You should have let me know in advance, and I would have wandered down there and kept you up all night with tales of stupid people. :)

Oh yeah, I'm just horribly stubborn for insisting the federal government stay inside the boundaries that were drawn for it, something it hasn't done in many decades. Instead, it's quietly moved the boundary lines outward, through unconstitutional laws and tortured Supreme Court decisions to prop them up, to encompass more and more of our lives.

You'll have to pardon me for not throwing my wholehearted support toward this march off the cliff toward tyranny.

Yeah, now approve my other comment that your precious Akismet marked as spam. :P

As for me, I'd rather have limited government than divided government. You know, the way the Constitution said it was supposed to be, but hasn't actually been in a looong time.

Bombers or no bombers, I still maintain that it's irresponsible to vote if there's no one on the ballot worth voting for.

Give me "None of the above, these people are all worthless" and I'll vote for that almost every time! :)

Oh, almost forgot to mention. This is what we had to deal with here yesterday:

Polling place closed by bomb threat

Someone, who the police can never seem to catch, has spent the last couple of years leaving the occasional bomb around town. This person is apparently completely incompetent, though, because his bombs never actually go off. But one of these days, he might actually get it right...

I'll vote when there's someone worth voting for. I absolutely refuse to vote for the "lesser of two evils."

My further comments on this election are now available.

You both must be joking. And it's a pretty sick joke.

My blog isn't going anywhere, and my complaints, if anything, will get even louder.

I'd love to, but frankly, I know of no one here worth voting for.

The spammers are definitely getting out of hand. If it weren't for Bad Behavior filtering out most of them off the top, I wouldn't be able to deal with the 2 or 3 percent that Akismet catches.

Why, where else? You hit Google's I'm Feeling Lucky button.

You'll also need Bad Behavior. :)

(Oooo, you fixed your comments template. Nice!)

I've got maybe 15 active plugins, but I need all those features. :)

My recommendation is what it always was: Concentrate on writing content; that is, after all, the whole point of the blog! All the bells and whistles can come later.

When you need some code slung fast, you know where to find me. I'll be sure and charge my extra-special "the venture capitalists are paying for it" rates. :)

Oops!

(I told you so.)

If you're prepared for it, then you can monetize that traffic. I spent all summer performance tuning, so as to be able to handle that sort of thing.

But I didn't give away all my secrets... ;)