Mussolini, we are told, made the trains run on time.

So maybe San Francisco needs a little targetted fascism. Just in running the damned Muni–the San Francisco Municipal Transit Authority.

Lemme ’splain. Yesterday was Younger Girl’s first day of middle school, and she has a 45 minute bus ride to get there. So, bright and early, the girl (and I, in my capacity as keeper of children on track) got out of the house and arrived at the bus stop by 7:50–15 minutes early, thank God. The scheduled 7:52 #44 bus never showed. At 8:03 a #44 arrived and we, with several thousand of our neighbors, piled on. Joy! We were still on schedule. Except that half way to our transfer point the bus went out of service–too far away to go home and get the car, too far away to walk, and the bus driver informed us that the next #44 was perhaps half an hour behind us. Fortunately another bus–going north and east, rather than north and west, but at least going somewhere!–arrived. We piled on that one and arrived at Geary Street, where we caught the #38 bus. Arrived in front of YG’s school just as the bell was ringing; so much for the 15 minutes of early.

This morning, while the buses appeared to be running on time, the bus was again pulled out of service at 6th and Judah. Another #44 followed immediately afterward, and all seemed well, but the driver had to pull over in Golden Gate Park and throw a fit about something or other until a woman on the bus reminded him that he was making people late for work. (I am not making this up.)

The afternoon commute appears to be going more smoothly.

Look, I realize: entropy and stuff. There’s traffic, and unpredictable numbers of people getting on and off buses, and people loading their bikes on the front of the bus and people getting on in wheelchairs and all that. But there has to be some way to get the buses to run a little closer to on-time, or at least discourage drivers from throwing fits. Don’t you think targetted fascism might be the solution?

Here’s a great comic on climate change denialism:

Gang, I’m sorry to be so lame lately, but I started a fulltime job last week**, while having some non-serious but really persistent and annoying health issues. I missed my post last Monday, and yesterday as well. Lame lame lame-o.

But I thought I’d at least share this interesting tidbit. Moonbat at The MahaBlog, one of my favorite political/culture blogs, had a post recently regarding the research of psychologist Robert Altemeyer, the guy who has done landmark research on the authoritarian mindset. There’s a ton of good stuff both at the MahaBlog and also at Altemeyer’s own site, but here is a sampling:

Authoritarian followers…support the established authorities in their society, such as government officials and traditional religious leaders. Such people have historically been the “proper” authorities in life, the time-honored, entitled, customary leaders, and that means a lot to most authoritarians. Psychologically these followers have personalities featuring:

• a high degree of submission to the established, legitimate authorities in their society;
• high levels of aggression in the name of their authorities; and
• a high level of conventionalism.

There is a ton of more good material—check out both sets of links for more. What particularly fascinated me was moonbat’s description of an experiment Altemeyer performed.

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