recreational

UPDATE III: BREAKING: LOCAL TV STATION TRACKS DOWN NEWEST HOT DOG CART!!!

UPDATE III: As I predicted most of these plastic thingies have been removed or destroyed by vehicles. Shocker! I Know. Just yesterday the last one remaining in front of the post office was ran over by a mail carrier big rig. He didn’t completely destroy it, but he broke one of the pieces. Absolute stupidity. Do we even have a traffic engineer that studies industry standards and keeps abreast? Doubtful.

UPDATE II: As you can see, cars are already hitting and damaging these devices, and they have only been on the street for a couple of weeks. I think this will end badly, mark my words.

UPDATE: As I suspected they are using these bands in the wrong way, they are for protected bike lanes;

Bicycle lanes should feel safe and inviting. But that doesn’t mean they have to be eyesores. The Wave Delineator accomplishes this by quickly and easily creating protected bike lanes, while providing a visually appealing alternative to its traffic cone and flex post counterparts. Ideal for temporary pop-up bike lanes during day- or week-long events, or when communities want to pilot a location for a longer-term protected bikeway.

Now that I have your attention I really wanted to talk about the city’s traffic calming efforts. While I get how this works, these white bands are actually not only a hazard to passing car they are also to bicyclists who are trying to navigate around these contraptions. I am all for the other stuff, but not this floating thingy that I have almost hit twice now. The city has a bad habit of doing this all over town, building pedestrian crossings where the curb slopes are NOT cut out and other hazards like barriers, light posts, weird angles, etc. Can’t wait to see this wrapped around someone’s driveshaft.

We need to educate drivers on pedestrian safety. This city needs to drop about $500K on driver education thru a multiple media platforms. We can paint every intersection like Willy Wonka, but until drivers wakeup, doesn’t matter.

Speaking of idiotic things the city does, after former councilor Neitzert spent months on changing the rec trail ordinances the city employees fart around installing inadequate signage;

Notice how small the MPH sign is. They also have E-Bike crossed out and you have to read the small print to realize you can ride an E1 or E2. And where are the speed signs? I think that the SFPD probably told the Parks Department they won’t be enforcing speeds on the trail, and probably the reason there is NO speed signage along the trail. Can’t ticket someone for speeding if there is no speed limit notice on the trail.

Still waiting for a road biker doing 25 hitting a grandma on her E2 doing 10, then we can have a discussion about speed, braking and physics.

Noem’s fight against Rec Jane has nothing to do with ‘saving the children’

The real reason I supported decriminalizing recreational marijuana in South Dakota had nothing to do with me wanting to suck on a bong all day, my main argument besides the extra tax revenue which can be used for infrastructure and education is that it would save taxpayers millions each year in costs associated with justice and incarceration for possessing and ingesting a plant.

The real fight that our Governor has launched has very little to do with saving the kids but protecting the massive private prison contractors;

The largest private prison corporations, Core Civic and GEO Group, collectively manage over half of the private prison contracts in the United States with combined revenues of $3.5 billion as of 2015.

It is estimated that around 1 million people in this country are incarcerated for minor drug/non-violent offenses, and all that farting around with arresting pot heads is costing us;

The costs of this national obsession, in both money and time, are astonishing. Each year, enforcing laws on possession costs more than $3.6 billion, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.

Don’t be fooled by Noem’s message that she is trying to protect your children, this is about big money and big business. I have argued one of the main reasons employers are struggling right now to find workers is because many of these workers that are qualified can’t pass background checks due to felony drug convictions for minor possession.

I will say this, if Rec becomes legal in South Dakota (I give the Feds under 5 years to decriminalize it) I am not suggesting anyone who hasn’t tried it before to take up the hobby. Believe it or not, Mary Jane is popular because it works (gets you high) and has very few side effects. In other words, it is kind of harmless. But the major benefit from decriminalization, whether you use or not, is that it will save taxpayers a boat load of money, and the private prison contractors are not very happy about it (and neither are the lawyers).

Republican Leaders in SD continue to grasp at straws about the evil weed

Doesn’t matter how many FACTS you throw at Republican leaders in our state about the benefits of eliminating the prohibition of marijuana, they continue to grasp at any made up crap they can to call out on the evil weed.

Mayoral candidate and all around Shaggy double, David Zokaites did a presentation about drug prohibition and especially the worthless nature of prohibiting marijuana at public input during the Minnehaha county commission meeting this week AND the same presentation at the city council meeting.

At the end of the meeting during open discussion (FF: 1:14) Commissioner Jeff Barth said that the county and state should start the conversation now in case marijuana gets legalized in our state next year (which he thinks it will) when it comes to taxation, zoning, etc. He thought we were blindsided by Marsy’s Law and should be better prepared with marijuana legalization.

Bob Litz who happened to be standing at the podium talked about an upcoming speaker at a conference who is a sheriff from Colorado, who will speak about the effects of legalization in his state.

Of course, the commission’s Neo-Con, since Dick left, Cindy Heiberger had to weigh in. She said while David pointed out that NO one died from marijuana usage, she had to point out that it causes ‘social issues’.

I would partially agree, because people are tired of being arrested and prosecuted over a harmless drug, and the ‘issues’ it is causing in their lives.