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Seen on ride 4/3/11

I'm seeing a lot more traffic rotaries on the streets around Colorado, this is the first time I've seen one on a bike path.

My New Wind Turbine Design

This is my new wind turbine with dual, counter-rotating props. I wasn't sure how this would work, but so far it looks pretty good.
If both props are rotating at the same speed the difference is twice that speed.

Eyjafjallajokull under the Aurora Borealis

Saw this graph at Firedoglake-link

The figure for deaths due to lack of health insurance came from a Harvard study that was published in the American Journal of Health Care, the other numbers for accidents and deaths due to sickness are from the National Center for Health Statistics (part of CDC). I did not realize that there were 10K deaths from Swine Flu this year, turns out, that's the estimate, might be as high as 14K.

At the right end of the graph is a sliver that represents 16 deaths due to terrorism. Certainly there are some Americans that are totally freaked out by shoe bombers and underpants bombers, unfortunately the heads of most of our media outlets are among that group. So, if you subject yourself to American news programs it's most likely going to be Terror! Terror! Terror! for the most part. Any news about HCR will probably be inside baseball about how the big players are wheeling and dealing.

My problem with the graph is that it says deaths due to lack of insurance, insurance is not health care. I have insurance from my employer, we're all required to enroll in the company health plan if we're not covered by any other plan. The deal is the coverage sucks, if I got seriously ill, the co-pays and out of pocket expenses might well drive me to bankruptcy.

The endless war on terror that we seem to be committed to is siphoning an enormous amount of resources away from our health care problems. that is the shame of this nation. My suggestion, ditch this piece of crap masquerading as health care reform now, enact universal single payer health care/ Medicare for all, pay for it by scaling back the MIC accordingly. It's a plan, but I'm not holding my breath.

Recent Photos

Dark clouds brooding over peaks in the Raggeds Wilderness, they rained on me pretty good down the road.




Believe it or not, they call this Flat Top Mountain, it's gorgeously illuminated in this late summer sunset.




Wild turkeys that didn't seem to mind sharing the road with me for a short stretch west of Crested Butte.

Small Waterfall at Cold Springs

This is one of two small waterfalls at the Cold Springs Campgrounds in the Flattops Wilderness. I've camped by these falls a least once each summer over the past few years. Year after year the flow of water down these falls is so consistent that they seem like fountains to me.