Via MinusCar, a group of Iowans have started an online petition, seeking to put a measure on the ballot to make bicycling on farm-to-market roads illegal. Because, you know, when you’re driving along on a back country road in your minivan, just trying to send a text message to your husband or pastor, and you accidentally kill a cyclist, it really makes you feel bad. And not just for a little while! Sometimes you feel really, really bad about killing someone with your car for a long time! Plus, just like hitting a deer, it can cost a lot of money to fix the car.

A commenter notes that there is now a counter-petition to have motor vehicles removed from Iowa’s rural roads:

Over the past ten years the number of motorists using these farm-to-market roads has increased dramatically, as have the number of preventable accidents and fatalities.

Traditional rural methods of commerce are significantly impacted when forced to share the farm-to-market roadways with motorists. Because of the growth of today’s commerce and agricultural business, shared roadways are no longer safe or practical in today’s society.

Operators of automobiles routinely disobey speed limits, spook horses and raise clouds of dust. They zip about, and act as though they own the public road itself!

So please if you are a resident of the world join us and help make our roadways safe for both people and livestock. Thanks for your time and your support.

My favorite comment so far:

These 4 wheeled horseless carriges have gone too far, besides creating useless wars for rubber, oil, steel they create a place for youths to experiment with sex and liquor! Time to ban them from all our roads!

Sex and liquor? Really? Hm. Maybe I should drive a car more often.

I know that saying this may result in some gnashed teeth and rent garments, but I’m going to state, unequivocally, that I think this is going too far. I’m reasonably certain that Iowa’s rural roads can accomodate bicycles, tractors, buckboards, and motor vehicles, and that people can share the road safely and responsibly.

Maybe the folks on opposite sides of this debate need to get together, and experiment with sex and liquor (maybe even in a car, so long as they’re not driving on a rural road at the time). I mean, it couldn’t hurt?

In 2002, it’s estimated that cellphone use while driving may have caused a thousand deaths, and maybe as many as 240,000 accidents. Nearly a quarter million accidents. But you never heard about it, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration decided to withhold data and research about the dangers of cellphone use while driving, because they thought it might anger Congress. God damn it.

In the 7 years since 2002, when that data could have led to stronger legislation protecting us from cellphoning drivers, my anecdotal observations suggest that that the number of folks talking and texting behind the wheel has gone nothing but up. If all those people replaced their phones with fucking martinis, I don’t think they’d be as dangerous. In fact, if we’re not going to risk inconveniencing voters who enjoy talking and texting while driving, or upsetting the cellphone industry, then we ought to take the boot off the neck of the alcohol industry and let people buzz on up before (and during!) the long drive to the mall. I mean, if it’s going to be a Deathrace, then I’m gonna need a drink.

And I’ll say this to you multi-tasking motorists I share our nation’s Capital with: I’m not crazy about your reckless, thoughtless habit of talking on the phone while you should be piloting your car, but if it’s a choice between that and having you attempt to type out a message on a numeric keypad while you blast through my neighborhood at 40 mph, please just call whoever it is you absolutely have to talk to right this very minute.

The president issued an order yesterday to stop the military tribunals at Guantanimo. This stood out for me.

Following Monday’s hearings, the Office of the Military Commissions held a press conference with several 9/11 family members, who had reportedly been selected by lottery to travel to the base to attend the hearings. Visibly angry, and holding up large photographs of their relatives who died on 9/11, they appealed to President Obama to keep Guantánamo open.

“Today we were in the presence of true evil,” said Donald Arias, who lost his brother Adam in the attack on the World Trade Center. “Mr. Obama needs to reexamine his decision and keep these tribunals going.”

Joe Holland, who lost his son in the World Trade Center, trembled with rage as he took the podium.

“My name is Joe Holland and I lost my son in 9/11,” he said. “When I said I was coming down here, people asked me what they could do. I said, ‘Write a letter to Obama saying that this place should stay open.’”

When journalists asked Holland about the possibility of trying the 9/11 suspects in federal court, he replied, “No, right here, at Guantánamo,” then excused himself from the podium as he fought back tears.

Report after report concludes that most of the people we held at Guantanamo were never affiliated with Al Qaida, weren’t picked up on any battlefield, and were being held for little or no reason, which means we were destroying lives and families across the globe in response to 9/11. I mean, put aside from the odd Taliban foot soldier who was conscripted, never understood what was happening to him, but finds himself imprisoned a world away from his family with no hope of escaping the Kafkaesque nightmare we’ve created. Perhaps you can’t stir up sympathy for anyone that picked up a gun for the Taliban. Fine. What about the fucking Uyghurs, that everyone, everyone, understood weren’t even peripherally involved? What about the fact that 18 Uyghurs were held in isolation for years and years in Cuba? Why isn’t Donald Arias concerned about that, and how can he be certain that he’s in the presence of “true evil” knowing any of that?

Some of the detainees were undoubtedly involved in planning or executing attacks against the U.S., but since we stepped over every bright line of human rights during their interrogations, bringing them to a fair, legitimate trial will be impossible. Maintaining the moral integrity and legitimacy of our judicial process is a prerequisite to bringing the perpetrators of 9/11, as well as terrorists we may apprehend in the future, to justice. But Joe Holland apparently doesn’t think this is important, or at least, doesn’t think it’s important in cases involving people even remotely suspected of involvement in the attack that killed his son.

And that, folks, is why victims of violent crime should never, ever be able to weigh in on how justice is best served. You can’t blame these people for being in pain, or for the depth and breadth of their grief. If I lost any member of my family to violence, I imagine I would be similarly consumed by heartbreak, rage, and vengeance. I am, after all, human.

By the same token, you can’t expect these folks to think rationally about what’s fair and just. I’m not saying that these families, or victims of violence generally, can’t overcome fear and anger to see clearly, but it shouldn’t be surprising if they can’t, and we certainly shouldn’t be asking their advice on how to proceed. It’s a circus sideshow, and the military folks that brought them down to Cuba to stir them up in front of the press ought to be deeply ashamed of themselves.

The makings of another shit sandwich, left by George W. Bush, for all of us to figure out how to eat. Thanks for that, George, and bon apetit America.