Vanderkitten Women's Cyclling Team Is No More

Vanderkitten, an Oakland, CA based women's apparel company and the sponsor of a women's pro cycling team for the last eight years, won't be fielding a squad during the 2015 season.

"The Oakland, USA based apparel company will expand its range next spring and include women from a wider variety of action sports.
 Vanderkitten began as a fashion forward apparel brand, & after 8 seasons as title sponsor of a Pro Women's Cycling Team, will look to focus on initiatives that highlight the most Kick Ass women on the planet. The Pro Cycling Team will be placed on hold for the 2015 season. Despite the upsurge in Pro Women's Cycling media coverage & engagement, the cycling industry was unable to come up with an investment commensurate with the presence & impact of Vanderkitten. VK will always be ready to field a Pro Cycling team when the cycling industry is ready for it. 

Founder & CEO Dave Verrecchia says “In 2006 I set out to ‘change the face of women’s cycling’ by creating a model that matched other action sports and brought excitement and attention to the potential of women’s cycling.  We’ve been the leader in this movement since, and will continue to create exciting cycling apparel while diversifying our product offerings to serve our growing action sports customer base. Vanderkitten will continue to have a very visible profile in women’s cycling on the road and on the dirt.”

 

One Point Seven Trillion Dollars

This article in left-wing Mother Jones puts the price tag on the "war against terror" since 9/11 at $1.7 trillion. At a minimum. Based on government figures.

Etienne De La Boetie, 1530-1563

Everyone knows that the fire from a little spark will increase and blaze ever higher as long as it finds wood to burn; yet without being quenched by water, but merely by finding no more fuel to feed on, it consumes itself, dies down, and is no longer a flame. Similarly, the more tyrants pillage, the more they crave, the more they ruin and destroy; the more one yields to them, and obeys them, by that much do they become mightier and more formidable, the readier to annihilate and destroy. But if not one thing is yielded to them, if, without any violence they are simply not obeyed, they become naked and undone and as nothing, just as, when the root receives no nourishment, the branch withers and dies. …
All this havoc, this misfortune, this ruin, descends upon you not from alien foes, but from the one enemy whom you yourselves render as powerful as he is, for whom you go bravely to war, for whose greatness you do not refuse to offer your own bodies unto death. He who thus domineers over you has only two eyes, only two hands, only one body, no more than is possessed by the least man among the infinite numbers dwelling in your cities; he has indeed nothing more than the power that you confer upon him to destroy you. Where has he acquired enough eyes to spy upon you, if you do not provide them yourselves? How can he have so many arms to beat you with, if he does not borrow them from you? The feet that trample down your cities, where does he get them if they are not your own? How does he have any power over you except through you? How would he dare assail you if he had no cooperation from you? What could he do to you if you yourselves did not connive with the thief who plunders you, if you were not accomplices of the murderer who kills you, if you were not traitors to yourselves? …
(Y)ou can deliver yourselves if you try, not by taking action, but merely by willing to be free. Resolve to serve no more, and you are at once freed. I do not ask that you place hands upon the tyrant to topple him over, but simply that you support him no longer; then you will behold him, like a great Colossus whose pedestal has been pulled away, fall of his own weight and break in pieces.

 

Knives Are Dangerous Weapons!

In the nation/state's never-ending quest for the risk-free, the common knife, a tool with a history of many thousands of years,  has morphed from one of man's earliest accomplishments to a deadly threat, especially to the garrison mentality, as we read here. The Ramsey County Courthouse, a location that is ordinarily literally crawling with well-paid and highly-trained law enforcement personnel, can't allow the presence of an edged tool. Sure, there's always the potential that some malhechor could behead a sheriff's deputy in the second floor men's room but how likely is such an event? How often, in previously easy-going times, were judges, witnesses and defendants stabbed during courtroom proceedings? Aren't there other common items that could also be used to inflict mayhem? A honed dinner fork could be used to poke out an eye. A sturdy ball point pen, with some slight modifications, could easily serve a similar purpose. It might be best for all visitors to the court house to strip down to their undies so the coercion complex can go about its business without worry.


Jackson Pollock's "Naked Man With Knife"

Minnesota Velodrome Looking At Uncertain Future

As this article in Twin Cities.com details, the National Sports Center Velodrome in Blaine, MN, a northern suburb of the Twin Cities, is facing structural deterioration that will require significant repairs with major expenses in order to stay in operation. An uncovered, outdoor facility built in 1990, the bicycle track has now endured 25 years of humid, muggy summers and frigid, snowy winters that have taken a toll on its surface and substructure. Sunday night many of the riders, fans and other interested souls gathered at the Fulton Brewery in downtown Minneapolis for a fundraiser to assist the effort in keeping the 250 meter track viable for a few more seasons.

The Problem With Background Checks

The Wall Street Journal finally realized what myself and a few others have known for some time, that the adoption of background checks by private business is creating a class of unemployable, unhousable people. Their front page story in this weekend's edition calls attention to the issues faced by business human resources departments that are caught between possible legal responsibilities in hiring felons and mandates by the EEOC that require them to consider those same felons for employment. Tsk, tsk.

Sure, it's a problem for the business community, when the satisfactory or ideal candidate for an open position is a convicted felon. Dissatisfied customers can use the presence of a felon on the job in adverse legal proceedings. Who needs the grief? But this is more than just a hassle for HR departments.

The guys with the real problems are the felons themselves. They've become basically unemployable in the normal economy since they can't pass a background check. Once they fail a background check, they know it's a waste of time to even apply for another position. Employment isn't the only problem for them. Failure to pass a background check usually means they can't get rental housing, either. And having once failed the background check, they can never pass it again. Since this is the case, the unemployable felons (Once a felon, forever a felon.) can only increase in number. It's said that there are now 48 million felons in the US.

Nevertheless, ex-cons need to eat, get out of the rain at night and wear clothes. They're unlikely to commit suicide. In fact, they're more likely to be killed. Having a rap sheet a mile long, Eric Garner was unemployable and lucky to be able to peddle loosey cigarettes to make ends meet. That is, he was until the NYPD put him in a strangle hold.

What's the future in the land of the free and the home of the brave look like for felons, and non-felons as well? First of all, the growing number will create another class that will have to survive outside of the economy. Gray market businesses will spring up to supply their needs and use their labor. Since the only sources of income for background check failures will be the generosity of their friends and family, the dole, black market employment or crime, they'll continue to be an ever bigger problem for the nation/state.This particular nation/state, the US, was founded by Puritans and while their religious outlook has disappeared, their ethics and morality survive to this day, enshrined in the tenets of capitalism. These tenets do not include the number one in Christianity, forgiveness. God may forgive but the nation/state? Never.

Orange County Sheriff Blames Illegal Behavior on Poor Organization and Training

The home of Disneyland and the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim is also headquarters of the Orange County Sheriff's Office, under the control of Sheriff Sandra Hutchens. This agency has come under scrutiny for its extensive use of jail cell informants, awarding money and perks for testimony and recorded confessions, refusal to share information with defense attorneys, and then lying about it. As related here, Sheriff Sandra has the situation under control and it was all just a  little mistake. Everything's OK now.

Poor organization and training is the problem. It's not that the principals involved are criminals themselves or even just unethical, it's just that they don't know the regs, aren't able to tell right from wrong. With an effective bureaucracy and the correct instruction none of these sheriff's office employees, all of whom are beyond reproach, will continue to do things that are illegal. They simply didn't know that defense attorneys are to be provided access to prosecution records and they weren't aware that perjury is a crime.