News, Entertainment, Enlightenment
Are Hybrids Passe? — Hybrid cars have been steadily losing market share despite the steadily increase pump pain going from 2.8 percent in 2009 to 2.2 percent last year.
Bloomberg Business Week suspects the cause to be drastically improved internal combustion engines which give many economy cars over 40 mpg making it silly to spend the $6,000 extra the battery wagons cost over a standard car.
Driving west on Baltimore Pike through Springfield, Delaware County, Pa, one will reach a stoplight flanked by Springfield Square North and South.
A few dozen yards behind will be an exit from Springfield Square North which could but rarely disgorges traffic back onto the Pike. Why would it be used? It only allows right turns hence it merely puts a motorist in line for a light they would likely miss if he just used the main exit.
Now, if that driveway were an entrance on the other hand it would be used probably by more than half of those entering the center cutting down the snarl at the main entrance and bringing relief to those drivers who just want to pass on by.
A few hundred yards beyond Springfield Square is a small strip center across from the termini of North Chester and Riverview roads. It has a Starbucks, Talbots dress shop, an AT&T store and an absolutely bizarre traffic flow. The first driveway, counter-intuitively, is the exit. This means the customers unfamiliar with the site use it as an entrance.
Drivers entering as they should often find themselves face to face on the narrow traffic way with cars leaving the back parking spaces for the exit.
This small center is abuts the larger Olde Sproul Shopping Village which has several entrances and exits with a light at the main one.
A small concrete barrier prevents cars from entering the Village from the Starbucks’ center and getting onto the Pike using the traffic light.
Why? Both centers are private property. It is possible the absentee landlords are not aware of the issue. It is possible they don’t care about the issue.
Regardless, the lives of the community could be improved with just a small bit of effort.
Obama Poster Guy Cops Plea — Shepard Fairey, the designer of those once-cool Obama “Hope” poster who was last seen on these pages being chased out of Europe as a “Yankee hipster“, has pleaded guilty to criminal contempt stemming from a copyright lawsuit over his iconic poster.
The Associated Press sued Fairey saying he violated the copyright held by the news service regarding the photo on which he based his poster.
Fairey said uh uh, that it was a different photo.
Well, no it wasn’t. But Fairey deleted files and created false documentation to show otherwise and that is why he now faces a six-month prison sentence.
Fairey says lying to the court was the worst thing that he’s ever done.
Actually, the worst thing that he has ever done was in November 2008 when voted for an complete incompetent to run this country.