Round and round and round they go

A friend linked me today to a story about Greenfield, Ind.'s mayor proposing four new roundabouts. To quote the webcomic "Questionable Content," I am in favour of this so much you have no idea.

You see, in my hometown of Evansville, Ind., we have an east side and a west side. These sides of town have developed their own segregated cultures due to the difficulty involved in crossing from one side to the other. There are only two roads. One is a six-lane divided highway (which shrinks to four lanes outside of city limits, but even so) and the other is a four-lane divided street that doubles as State Route 62. The latter is called Diamond Ave. within city limits, and is far too north of where I typically need to go. Thus, my only real option is the former, known within city limits as the Lloyd Expressway.

The Lloyd as it is known colloquially was named for an ex-mayor who was murdered by a woman who believed him to still be the mayor back in the early 1980s. The expressway was constructed in his memory (partly due to his involvement during his life and time in office, I believe). It runs from Warrick County to the east to Posey County to the west. All along its route are traffic lights approximately every half-mile to mile, apart from one two-and-a-half mile stretch of elevated highway. How, many have asked, including my father upon its construction in 1982, the hell is this a god damned "expressway"?

Matters only get worse, of course. In the mid 1990s, there was an extensive construction project known locally for its severe cock-ups. The project took over one thousand days to complete. Eventually, approximately ten years ago, the project was completed and all lanes of the Lloyd "Expressway" were open for traffic again, apart from minor construction issues that all roads face. This past year, two lanes (one each direction) were shut down and an off-ramp was constructed. The two lanes being shut down increased the amount of time it took to cross Fulton Ave. westbound, the location where all lanes reopened.

Come December, the eastbound route is still restricted to two lanes after Fulton until Wabash, then restricted again to two lanes upon leaving city limits (which causes one to wonder why the fuck they don't just cut it to two lanes for the time in between but never mind that for now), but the westbound route takes the newly-constructed off-ramp, stops at a newly-installed traffic light on South Fulton, goes to another traffic light at First Ave. (southbound), ANOTHER traffic light at First Ave. (northbound), then to an on-ramp and back onto the elevated highway portion of the Lloyd.

Now hypothetically they are removing the traffic light at Fulton Ave. and installing an on/off ramp system. This is something I approve of, however I would very much prefer if we didn't have to trade one traffic light for three in the mean time. If you can build an off-ramp, odds are you could also remove the need for three traffic lights and simply have a turn-in/turn-out space like other sections of the highway have. This would only limit it to two traffic lights at First Ave., but with a bit of effort they could be much better synchronised than they currently are. The ultimate up-side of this would be fewer people would think their city planners and road commissioners are stupid fucking assholes.

Or, we could replace half the traffic lights with roundabouts and let the stupid drivers die on them.

You fucking idiot

Dear fucknut:

Your username is a Spanish-language pun on "Backwards", and it's never been so appropriate: it perfectly describes your thinking on nearly everything. You actually said, in a discussion on Proposition 8 and homosexuality,

The backlash against Mormons is not about them being "interlopers" it is because Mormons are minority that it is politically correct to demonize.

Would this be a bad time to mention that Mormons are allowed to do damn near whatever they like? Mormons are not allowed to marry multiple people, certainly, but then again neither is anyone else. Gay marriage would work as an equaliser: Everyone can marry one person of legal age of their choice, regardless of race, religion or gender. But the Mormons don't want that. Could they be jealous because they can't marry the twelve people they want? Honestly, I don't have a huge problem with polygamy either, so after gay marriage, if the Mormons want to push for poly-marriage, I'd be happy to support that cause too. I'll be happy to be the bigger person and support those who have opposed and even demonised my friends and those I've championed. 

But currently, Mormons are the most persecuted group, or at least popular to be persecuted. Are they really? You really think so, Backwards? Let's go to Richmond, Calif. Richmond is on the East San Francisco Bay area, a few miles north of Oakland. You know, the same San Francisco Bay Area that is a central city of gay culture and liberal politics. There was a story in the news, not widely reported of course, because it was sort of a downer, that on 13 December, a woman was hit with a blunt object, forcibly stripped of her clothes, and gang-raped. She was left naked outside a burned-out apartment block (source: San Francisco Chronicle). She MUST have been a Mormon, right? Nope. She was an open lesbian. The crime is being investigated as a hate crime, probably because it WAS one. 

A google search of "mormon hate crime" turns up two or three stories from Arizona newspapers of a Mormon missionary getting beaten up by an unknown assailant who shouted "Mormon" at him, and the rest of the results on the first page are attacks on buildings, not people, certainly not RAPES, many of which post-Proposition 8. 

Now maybe I'm off-target on this, but I think rape is the most despicable thing a so-called human can do to another human (or non-human as the case may be, but let's stick to intra-species violation). Murder, assault, battery, emotional abuse, property damage, or dismemberment don't hold a candle in my view to rape. So the next time a Mormon missionary is kidnapped, mugged, and gang-raped, and the police treat it as if it MIGHT be a hate crime as opposed to an OBVIOUS hate crime, I'll admit that maybe Mormons are persecuted. As it is, anyone claiming Mormons as a minority "that it is politically correct to demonise" can go fuck themselves.