Personally, I think all this bickering over who invented what and where is pretty silly. You guys going to whip out your dicks and a tape measure next?

“Is Japan in Wisconsin???“
This is what my AMERICAN classmate asked me when I said that I was from Japan.

Oh please, EVERYBODY knows Japan is in Utah. 

Okay, I know I’m beating a long-dead horse here, but I read this statement last night and literally had warm milk coming up through my nose.

Ellie: To close this & calm down by consuming some God-blessed capitalist products of comfort food, or maybe, better yet, something few Europeans have heard of-exercise!

I can only hope that Ellie was kidding. You do realize, though, that it is AMERICANS who are obese and who do not excercize nearly as often as they should, Ellie (if she’s still around to read this)? You do realize that it is the EUROPEANS who get out and actually use their legs to walk places, don’t you Ellie? You do realize that EUROPEANS on the whole excercize far more often than Americans do, whether by riding their bikes to get around or by ambulating, as previously mentioned? You do realize that it is largely the AMERICANS who drive their SUVs to get places that are a full block away from their homes?

Again, I apologize, but I simply had to address this ridiculous comment, regardless of when it was written.

And my reaction was far more civil than John’s; I won’t even mention what he called Ellie after I showed him her comment, but suffice it to say it was a hilarious putdown.

I agree. I’m an American and I think most Americans are morons.Most Americans have never lived in or traveled to another country, and have no interest in doing so. Most Americans speak only one language, and know very little about history, including their own. The majority of Americans are self-centered, insular, apathetic, consumers of popular ‘culture’, who are afraid of different cultures, especially those that don’t swallow the mindless pablum of popular culture. Americans are especially fearful of any society that doesn’t buy into the doctrine of unfettered caprialism or, God forbid, that values a government which works for the benefit of everyone.  ‘Community’ and ‘compromise’ are nasty words to many Americans, who view stubborn intransigence, no matter how misguided, as a sign of principled leadership. Americans are generally single-issue voters (usally pocketbook issues), who see only short-term solutions to long-term problems.

Americans are stupid because they don’t give a fuck about education, and they watch too much TV crap. Once you realise you are stupid, you become smarter, sadly that’s not the case with these morons. I hate stupid people.

BASEBALL WAS FIRST PLAYED IN ROMANIA (that is eastern europe for all you ignorant chumps). Baseball has little to do with cricket. A few Romanian immigrants brought it to America and it quickly spread. The development of Baseball started in the 1300’s in Romania. Do some research of your own. Baseball started in Romania the same Way soccer did in England. I hate stupid people! Morons.

Ok, ran across this discussion and i feel that i should throw in a couple of sentences. 

First off, enough of the who did what crap…it seems that everybody is fighting over who did what and blah blah blah.  Just because it was an american or a european or an asian that figured something out big deal…people are figuring out things every day all over the world does it really matter now a days where they came from?  I think that the more important question is “where are we going with this?“ because right now there are more important things going on in the world than to fight about who invented baseball, the car, sex, blah blah…In case anyone has forgotten Americans minus 200 years are Europeans..and Europeans - a couple of thousand years are Africans… We all have the same roots…we are all related.  we are all human.  just stop all the stupid bickering and lets solve these STUPID PROBLEMS together.  not talk about blame, get past all that and work on making things better for everybody.

Step 1 - get rid of bush ...hehehehe

The discussion is (or should be) not about who, racially speaking, invented what but which cultures innovate the best.  As it happens Western culture has produced the top innovators for the last few hundred years.  This wasn’t always true.  When the West was dominated by the church, the main export was theology while other cultures were far more advanced.

Sexy;

I agree with you that a great many Americans need more exercise and that some people drive when they should walk.  Part of the problem now is that in many areas outside of a city core, it is essentially impossible to walk to stores and other places.  Outside of the housing areas (that have no stores and virtually no services); the roads are multi-lane highways with heavy traffic, no sidestreeets, few sidewalks, and no crosswalks.  On the street outside of my subdivision there are long stretches of road where it is IMPOSSIBLE to legally or safely cross the street because there are no intersections or crosswalks; and the heavy traffic is going at least 40 MPH (64 KPH).  As it happens, the only store within a mile of me that sells milk is across that busy street and the nearest safe place to cross is about a half mile away.  As far as buying food other than at a convenience store, the nearest supermarket is three miles away by car and at least five miles away on foot due to the Interstate highways and their associated ramps.  There are buses that go along that busy street.  As an experiment I took buses to the store nearest my house and it took over an hour round trip, and I still had to cross the street, only I could do it at an intersection.  Yeah, I have to drive to go anywhere.

When I was growing up there was a major through street that I walked along to go just about anywhere; including the library, grocery stores, drug store, and the hardware store.  The street was wide, had one lane in each direction, had wide sidewalks, and people drove about 30 MPH.  I visited my old town a while back and found that the road had been changed.  The sidewalks had been removed and the lanes narrowed so that there were now two lanes in each direction and the speed of the cars had also increased to about 45 MPH.  In many places it would have been impossible to walk along the road without actually walking in the traffic lane.

idm- That’s precisely the other problem with cars- not only do they pollute, but they help destroy community.  And I speak as someone who loves cars- I love driving, I spent hundreds of hours fixing up old cars, and have the greatest admiration for the science, engineering, and brute hard work that make them possible.  But there are too many cars, and they pollute too much, to be sustainable at present levels, not to mention what will happen when every Chinese gets one.  Sure, progress is being made with hybrids and electric cars, and public transportation is being improved even in America.  However, if we don’t increase the pace of such developments a lot, we’re facing a number of big uncomfortable crunches in the foreseeable future.

zilch; I used to love cars too, but I am getting so disgusted with grid lock traffic.  Politics and big corporation money distorts the entire transportation picture.  I think that hybrid cars are at best frivolous, and at worst an outright deception.  Electric cars were promising, but reality and/or politics have killed them for now.  Hydrogen fuel cell technology looks promising, but unless a radically new way of producing hydrogen is devised it really doesn’t solve any problems (and it could make traffic over crowding even worse).

Building or expanding light rail is very expensive and the people in communities near a proposed station typically fight it because they feel that it will allow “undesirables” access to their community. 

Some people live and work where they can use mass transit, and a great many more people either can’t use light rail or it is impractical.  I live in a congested metropolitan area and the nearest light rail station is about 3 miles away.  The light rail parking lot is usually full so driving from my home to the light rail station is very risky.  Taking a bus is a nightmare of waits and transfers.  It doesn’t really matter that I can’t get to the light rail station because light rail doesn’t go anywhere near where I work.  Light rail IS great for going into the City on the weekend; the parking lot is not full and the system serves the parts of the city that I normally go to.

Politics and big corporation money distorts the entire transportation picture.

Indeed.  Even here in Europe, we have ads showing people driving cars on long empty roads in the desert, or along beaches, or up to a lonely mountaintop- just the kind of driving everyone experiences every day.  All I can say is, to quote a sign Global 2000 activists hung from an overpass over a gridlocked street here in Vienna, “Liebe Autofahrer: Sie stecken nicht im Stau, Sie sind der Stau” (Dear Drivers: You’re not stuck in a traffic jam, you are the traffic jam)

you are the traffic jam

Cool. I tip my hat to clever words’ stuff. 

Here in DFW land, they’re slowly waking to the idea of a REGIONAL transit system.  I wouldn’t mind using light rail if I didn’t have to drive halfway to my destination to get on it. 

Most of the SUV drivers around here seem to live in the ‘burbs, where there is no decent mass transit.  I always thought if they’d just run a light rail spur out the the exploding burb areas, they’d not only have riders and fewer SUVs on the road, but downtown would then have access to more professional employees.  Consider that these are the people who use the tollways, buy more gas, and pay parking fees, they’d be more likely to shell out a little more for a rail pass.  I don’t really like to think about how much we spend in tolls going to work/school, but when gas was at $3/gal, it cost me $5 to make a round trip to school in gas and tolls. 

There are a few places around the office buildings that are setting up the local shops/apartments in walking distance to office buildings.  Pretty nice areas, if you can afford to live there. 

My crazy thought is that if they’d build light rail along the Dallas North Tollway, it’d attract businesses and boost those already there.  I had considered using the bus, but the nearest bus station was halfway to work through heavy traffic.  Businesses have been relocating to the north end of it b/c most of their employees live out there.  There’s been a lot of new office buildings put up along the tollway that it’s made traffic MUCH worse over the years

Took the DART light rail to Texas-OU weekend in the West End one year.  Downtown parking was insane(moreso than usual), but had to take a cab back since the trains quit running at midnight.

zilch; I guess that the blame for traffic jams eventually goes back to the drivers, although I think that there are several issues making traffic worse that citizens have lost control to corporate influences.  An old example in the US is that GM headed a consortium that bought up street car companies and shut them down.  Oil companies and car manufacturers were very influential in getting the Interstate Highway system built, which at least contributed to urban sprawl.

ragaman;  You brought up some some interesting issues.  In US metropolitan areas it is usually very expensive to live near where one works.  It is also usually expensive to buy homes within walking distance of light rail stations. 

The use of light rail to attend sporting events and concerts is frustrating because the trains stop running at night, and you never know whether you will be able to take the train back to your car.  A taxi would cost over $100 from the city back to the rail station where my car would be parked.

One major frustration I noticed with using the Washington DC Metro rail system to commute to work is that during peak tourist season commuters have to compete with hordes of tourists just to get on the train.

idm, I was just looking for info on GM’s alleged buyout of public transportation, and found lots of sites about it, on both sides of the issue.  It seems that there is some truth to the story, but whatever the true story is, it’s not the whole reason for traffic jams.

Part of the problem is that many people simply prefer to drive their own car than take public transportation, no matter how good it is: here in Vienna, with exemplary public transportation (far better than any city in the States, although that’s not saying much), 24% of the auto drivers questioned in a recent poll said they’d still drive their cars to work even if public transportation were free.  You must consider that driving a car here is much more expensive than in the States.

It’s understandable: aside from the convenience, it’s fun to feel the freedom and power of “sitting behind the wheel of a large automobile” (letting the days go by, Talking Heads), and it’s the only time for many people to be alone.  Of course, it’s also the only choice for many people, especially in the States with its miserable public transportation.

idm: I think (based on living in DFW) that the housing is expensive to begin with, since they seem to wait for saturation before building rail.  There’s an area at what used to be the north end of the tollway called Legacy.  EDS built there, and they still had the cattle last I looked.  Companies started building there b/c the middle class employees were buying houses in cheaper boom areas nearby, and it was pastureland.  I have a friend who would ride a bike to work if he didn’t have 6 lanes of rush hour to cross.  I think if there was a rail station there, you could run it down the tollway and into downtown, and get a lot of commuters on it.  There are also the Galleria and Willowbend malls next to the tollway, and Stonebriar (160 store mall, and I swear every chain store/restaurant in the US adjacent) is a 1/2 mile off of it.  Well, maybe the Galleria and Willowbend stereotypical shoppers shun public transport, but I’d think the malls would be an attraction to a transit line.  Not to mention the American Airlines Center would be on the route. 

But, that would be too logical and make too much sense for the City of Dallas.  The crap I’ve seen go on makes me glad not to live in Dallas county or city limits.

Whether people will use public transportation or not is influenced by a number of factors. Cost, convenience, and reliability come to mind, but there are probably more.

In Chicago, I’ve come to love the Metra trains or whatever they were called. It was a couple of minutes drive to the train station, the trains were clean and very punctual, I could work or play on a laptop, read a book, try to nap, or do whatever else one does when you don’t have to pay attention to traffic. I had a walk of three or four blocks the the office building, which admittedly could be nasty, depending on the weather.

Overall, it took me longer to ride the train than to drive, particularly if I could avoid the peak of commuter traffic, but the reduced stress was well worth it. And of course, depending on traffic, the train could beat the car by an hour or two.

I don’t recall how the costs stacked up, but I suspect that the train was cheaper. Taking the car meant a 60-mile round trip, with about a tank a week and a huge fee for the parking garage. The train was a gas tank a month, the train tickets, and a token fee for the station’s parking lot. Chances are I came out ahead taking the train.

Zilch, I’d like to be able to sit and read, or listen to music while taking the train to work.  I do enjoy driving, but hate heavy traffic.  When I’m on the bike, I head for the rural roads, not the interstate, so I can enjoy the ride more.  I’d probably still own a stick if I didn’t have to drive it to work/school in heavy traffic.

You’ll always have those who will always drive b/c it’s a status symbol, or for the privacy/freedom.  I wouldn’t take transit to do a lot of shopping, but for the workday drudge, definately.

a sign Global 2000 activists hung from an overpass over a gridlocked street here in Vienna, “Liebe Autofahrer: Sie stecken nicht im Stau, Sie sind der Stau” (Dear Drivers: You’re not stuck in a traffic jam, you are the traffic jam)

That just went into my quotes file alongside “No drop of rain ever feels any responsibility for a flood” and “No single snowflake ever feels responsible for an avalanche.“

I love cars, but if you can possibly manage living close enough, almost any other form of transportation is preferable for commuting.  It’s hard to beat a bicycle, and public transportation actually enhances community. 

Every three weeks I put five gallons of gas into my car.  The rest of the time I enjoy a much more advanced form of transportation, my bike.

I love bike riding too, although it’s pretty dangerous here in Vienna.  Unfortunately, many car drivers follow that old hallowed law, “might makes right”, and you have to bike very defensively.  But the feeling of freedom and awareness of your surroundings you have on a bike is far greater than driving a “Blechdose” (a tin can, what the Austrian biking fanatics call cars).

A study was done here a couple of years ago comparing various means of transportation in the city, and the bicycle beat out feet, cars, and public transportation, if I remember correctly (I can’t find the study now), for distances between a few blocks and around five miles.  Shorter distances were fastest on foot, naturally, and longer distances were faster with cars or public, depending on where they were in the city.

I suspect the results would have been even more favorable to bikes if other factors had been included, such as time spent looking for parking (they just reckoned time from parking spot to parking spot, instead of from door to door), not to mention the hours spent working to pay for the various conveyances.

Self correction: My friend could ride a bicycle to work, but I ride a motorcycle to work when I can.  I gotta stop using “bike” both ways. 

I try to park further out so I can get the free exercise.  Parking vultures waste time, gas, and get stressed doing their thing.

Ah, motorcycles…  I once owned a Marusho 500, if anyone out there is into motorcycle esoterica…

The advantages of a bike multiply when more people ride them because bikes take up far less street area than cars.  But cities treat bikes like a major inconvenience to have around - most of the attention goes to cars.

‘Round these parts the default assumption is you only ride for pleasure, and only in nice weather.  Nobody thinks of a bicycle as a way to get around, let alone a superior way.