too fat to commit the murder defense

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/florida-man-obesity-defense-jersey-murder-case/story?id=8949922

300 pounder about my height with asthma and a long time smoker is using as his defense that he couldn't have run up 4 steps and then shot someone because his hands would have been too shaky, and even if he could, he couldn't have driven for 21 hours immediately thereafter.

Defense had better hope that no one on that jury has, say, watched The Biggest Loser. Or, say, has any morbidly obese friends. Because _I_ sure don't find that defense plausible. Maybe it's more plausible in person.

hating the dead end

I went down a little metaphorical dead end in an effort to find out if it was really the case that the idea of what is within walking distance had changed over time (I don't really believe this, but then I run up against people who think that anything over a mile is too far, and that's clearly a change from the historical/cross-cultural norm.), and along the way, I tripped once more over a list of ideas about what constitutes walkability. Included on this list -- as on many, many others -- is the idea of a street grid, rather than having cul de sacs.

I grew up on grids, and they have their merits. But a lot of what is going on in Western cities and towns with grids whose leaders and/or citizens are attempting to encourage walking, cycling and public transit is making many of the streets which go through very, very difficult to drive through. I cannot help but think that what is actually desired is not through streets, which is to say, for cars, but through paths, which is to say, for not-cars: for bicycles, pedestrians, and possibly for some low-speed powered vehicles. I know the fire departments generally prefer through streets, and various western European countries have attempted compromises such as home zones.

It really bugs me, tho, that on the list of things that people who are ostensibly all about the take-back-the-streets is to _give_ back the streets that cars don't much care for. To the cars. I'd far rather see us create a whole bunch of not-for-cars paths connecting the dead ends to other streets.