Home again, home again, jiggety jig

Great to be back in the land of productive kvetching, although i will admit that i rather enjoyed going four days without once having my windows rattled by a passing overpowered subwoofer on wheels. A quick look at the inbox tells me i'm going to be busy this week, so light posting will continue for another day or two.

I wanted to give kudos to Rob Christensen, of all people, for a great column on Raleigh buses, which featured some honest-to-God journalistic style research.

Raleigh may be a vibrant, fast-growing city, but it has a Mayberry-sized bus system.

Raleigh buses traveled 14.1 million passenger miles in 2006, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation. That is dwarfed by bus systems in other cities in Raleigh's size category. Buffalo, N.Y., buses traveled 63 million passenger miles; Cincinnati, 139 million passenger miles; Pittsburgh, 255 million passenger miles; Richmond, Va., 33 million passenger miles; Tampa, Fla., 47 million passenger miles. Charlotte, which is nearly twice the size of Raleigh, had 74 million passenger miles, or five times the passenger miles of Raleigh.

I'll have to find Rob's source, and see what the numbers are for Durham. I've got a hunch, though, how they'll turn out.

And Tony Taylor, one of Michael Vick's co-defendants in the dog fighting case up in Virginia, has copped a plea, confessing to having purchased the property on Vick's dime in order to set up a breeding/fighting operation.

One of Michael Vick's co-defendants pleaded guilty Monday to his role in a dogfighting conspiracy he says was financed almost entirely by the Atlanta Falcons quarterback.

As part of a plea agreement, Tony Taylor pledged to fully cooperate with the government in its prosecution of Vick and two other men accused of running an interstate dogfighting enterprise known as "Bad Newz Kennels" on Vick's property in rural Surry County.

"The 'Bad Newz Kennels' operation and gambling monies were almost exclusively funded by Vick," a summary of facts supporting the plea agreement and signed by Taylor states.

At this point, the only question remaining is whether Michael Vick can plant a reasonable doubt in a jury's mind that he was involved in the dog fighting operation. There shouldn't be any doubt that the allegations of dog fighting, and the brutality of killing dogs that were either losers or not up to snuff, are true. During one of my countless hours in front of the TV last week, i heard an interview with another NFL player (or perhaps former player, i didn't catch who it was) claiming that Vick represents essentially the tip of the iceberg when it comes to dog fighting in the NFL. While i hope that is not the case, i also hope that the feds are investigating this quite seriously. There's no place for dog fighting in a civilized society, and a couple of high profile prosecutions can go a long way toward eliminating this unnnecessary cruelty from the US.