Misdirection: “Among those precautions is wearing hiviz clothing when… walking. Is this what we’ve come to?”

Social Ideology of the Motorcar, 1972: “Unlike the vacuum cleaner, the radio, or the bicycle, which retain their use value when everyone has one, the car, like a villa by the sea, is only desirable and useful insofar as the masses don’t have one. That is how in both conception and original purpose the car is a luxury good. And the essence of luxury is that it cannot be democratised. If everyone can have luxury, no one gets any advantages from it. On the contrary, everyone diddles, cheats, and frustrates everyone else, and is diddled, cheated, and frustrated in return.” Worth a read if you can overlook (or nostalgically indulge in) the commie parts.

The scowling building security dude made his move this morning: you must also bring folding bicycles in through the freight elevator, with the rest of the tramps.

Superfreaks: “To be skeptical of climate models and credulous about things like carbon-eating trees and cloudmaking machinery and hoses that shoot sulfur into the sky is to replace a faith in science with a belief in science fiction.” A satisfying retort to Feakonomics’ latest who’d-a-thunk-it drivel.

Fringe benefits of lawful government: “We should treat terrorists like common criminals and give them all the benefits of true and open justice—not merely because it demonstrates our indomitability, but because it makes us all safer. Once a society starts circumventing its own laws, the risks to its future stability are much greater than terrorism.”