Darwin’s on duty since the NannySocialists ( NASIs ) have not yet managed to impose a helmet law .

The hassle having wheels of my choice in NYC was definitely a factor in my deciding my quality of life was not worth the many meetings I’d only be able to experience thru webcasts . But what the hell , if I couldn’t ride up to an MLP ( or even Queens or Brooklyn ) meeting ( picking up cheese on 3rd Ave on the way if it’s MLP ) , and , eg , go share cigars and Brews and thoughts with Jim Bovard if he’s the speaker who drew me away from the screen , it just ain’t worth it .

The folding scooter issue is a paradigm of the manner in which statism slows its people down . The State would countenance a dispensation for only Segway , but never for ordinary cheap and practical gas folding scooters you could get for under $500 on Canal Street by the time I left in ‘05 . It would have to at least be eco-electric and thus far from giving you the freedom to wander the boroughs

The Segway is a helicopter with analogous cost and performance characteristics compared to fixed wing aircraft and regular front-rear wheeled scooters . It is without question more dangerous , even tho much slower , than well designed folding scooters . No servos physically possible can make it as stable scraping a curb . There have been some hi-profile spills by some fawning politicians and other show-offs .

This is a reason I am seriously looking for a freer country . Out here , I’m learning about life’s cycle with a “in your face every day and every night” concreteness impossible to experience in a central city , I would prefer the density of intellectual stimulation of a capital . But it would be meaningless without mobility . No poor country truly aiming to be 21st century competitive - which implies libertarian - would think of hobbling its urban dwellers from getting around so quickly and efficiently . I’m looking for one of those .