Rock on.
Saturday, April 11, 2015
CUBA MADE ME SO MAD BECAUSE
I think we're at the "if we can't actually remember why we're mad maybe it's time to get over it" phase.
The Other BRT Problem
The biggest problem with Bus Rapid Transit projects is BRT creep, in which all the "rapid" bits keep getting shaved off in order to save money. The other problem is that if a line is actually successful, the route probably needs rail to handle the ridership.
Friday, April 10, 2015
Now Now Now Now Now Now Now Now
The thing about the retirement crisis is that it's, you know, here. People don't have enough money to retire and maintain anything close to their existing standard of living. The 401(k) experiment failed, and even if 401(k) II Electric Boogaloo comes along and is totally awesome, that doesn't do anything for current and near retirees.
We want to structure our economy so that people who are beyond the age when they are able to work/able to find work will be able to have a dignified existence. We're currently failing at that.
We want to structure our economy so that people who are beyond the age when they are able to work/able to find work will be able to have a dignified existence. We're currently failing at that.
How I Saved The World
I'm not one to take credit for anything, in part because most of the time I can't remember what I came up with and what I stole from others. It's a consequence of having the internet jacked into your head all day. Words and phrases and ideas just flow through constantly.
I think David was a bit too "generous" in how he cast me in this narrative, but there is, I think, some truth to it. Basically I farted in church. It was taboo to suggest expanding Social Security, and I helped to break that taboo.
I went to a retirement funding conference and was on a panel which had a topic something like "Beyond Social Security." Essentially, the topic was what else can we do to improve the retirement situation. My role there was to fart in church again. None of the (many very fine) people working on retirement security issues were "allowed" to say that the answer was to expand Social Security. It was such a political non-starter that only "other" things could be considered. So various Rube Goldberg proposals (some ok, some not, but all mostly ineffectual) were put forward. I got to say that beyond Social Security should be MOOOOOOAAAAAR Social Security. It isn't that this was something most people disagreed with, it was just something that was too crazy to actually propose. Bring on the crazy blogger to propose it.
It isn't crazy anymore. Progress.
I think David was a bit too "generous" in how he cast me in this narrative, but there is, I think, some truth to it. Basically I farted in church. It was taboo to suggest expanding Social Security, and I helped to break that taboo.
I went to a retirement funding conference and was on a panel which had a topic something like "Beyond Social Security." Essentially, the topic was what else can we do to improve the retirement situation. My role there was to fart in church again. None of the (many very fine) people working on retirement security issues were "allowed" to say that the answer was to expand Social Security. It was such a political non-starter that only "other" things could be considered. So various Rube Goldberg proposals (some ok, some not, but all mostly ineffectual) were put forward. I got to say that beyond Social Security should be MOOOOOOAAAAAR Social Security. It isn't that this was something most people disagreed with, it was just something that was too crazy to actually propose. Bring on the crazy blogger to propose it.
It isn't crazy anymore. Progress.
Off To The Races
Apparently Clinton's going to be running for realsie soon.
And the silly season officially begins.
And the silly season officially begins.
Not Gonna Last Long
Gonna be a post-apocalyptic nightmare soon.
ATLANTIC CITY - Revel, the $2.4 billion former casino hotel sold this week for $82 million, went dark - literally - Thursday afternoon.
Power was cut off around 2:20 after its supplier, ACR Energy, made good on multiple threats to new owner Glenn Straub and shut off the lights to the 6.2 million-square-foot, 47-story Boardwalk property.
Morning Thread
We've entered the silly season, to be sure.
Ted Cruz is tired of the media making him look bad with accurately quoted remarks.
Ted Cruz is tired of the media making him look bad with accurately quoted remarks.
Thursday, April 09, 2015
Dragnet
I'm not sure it helps to know how the people appointed by our elected officials keep track of free citizens. But Marcy is trying. You can help if you know of any she's missed.
ONE THOUSAND AND ONE
Conservative bigots are so weird.
In some respects, the series development appears similar to the current ABC comedy "Fresh Off the Boat." That show, about a Taiwanese family trying to adjust to life in the United States, was inspired by food personality Eddie Huang's memoir about his childhood.
Savage's very involvement angers the conservative groups. In a letter sent to Ben Sherwood, president of the Disney/ABC Television Group, MRC president L. Brent Bozell and Family Research Council President Tony Perkins cited Savage's "radical hate speech" and "venomous anti-Christian bigotry."
"They're choosing him for his signature, which is religious bigotry and personal offensiveness, not because he's gay," Bozell said. "There are a thousand and one gay people they could have chosen."
Summer In The Hellhole
It's good that the powers that be have come to understand that "hanging out and eating and drinking outside" are things people like to do. It wasn't all that long ago that restaurant sidewalk seating was completely banned in the city.
It's much better than "event" attractions, to which people just drive in for and then drive out. Beer gardens and similar benefit residents and visitors and aren't just a single destination thing.
It's much better than "event" attractions, to which people just drive in for and then drive out. Beer gardens and similar benefit residents and visitors and aren't just a single destination thing.
Unpossible
This is not how America is supposed to work.
SAN FRANCISCO -- The California Public Utilities Commission has voted to penalize Pacific Gas & Electric Co. $1.6 billion for a deadly 2010 natural gas pipeline explosion.
Probably A Lizard Person
The one "conspiracy theory" I truly believe is that most of our elites are actually alien lizard people.
Up Is Down
Excuse my hopefully rare moment of complaining. I'm pretty thick skinned but one thing which always grates is when people totally misunderstand something I've written, or more broadly, my general perspective about things. I frequently come across people attributing views and opinions to me that I have, to my knowledge, never expressed. It's always weird.
Nice Work
Heckuva job.
The Lenape tribe got a better deal on the sale of Manhattan island than New York City’s pension funds have been getting from Wall Street, according to a new analysis by the city comptroller’s office.
The analysis concluded that, over the past 10 years, the five pension funds have paid more than $2 billion in fees to money managers and have received virtually nothing in return, Comptroller Scott M. Stringer said in an interview on Wednesday.
Wednesday, April 08, 2015
What's The Norm
Actually curious. What are you supposed to do when the cops pull you over? When I was a wee lad, back in the Simelszoic Era, we were taught (driver's ed in high school!) that as Officer Friendly was walking up to your car you were supposed to be pulling out your insurance information from the glove box and your license from your pocket. Now it seems that "reaching for something" is an excuse to acquaint your body with some pieces of lead.
Popcorn Time
We'll see...
It has been falsely predicted many times in the last year, but now it seems to be true: The federal investigation into the lane closings at the George Washington Bridge appears to be coming to a head, with an announcement of indictments as early as next week.
Shrug
I have no illusions about the glory days when some men in blue didn't do horrible things, but as I've written before, I do think that there was a time when a cop shot someone it meant something had gone wrong. Encounters were supposed to be non-lethal. Cops were supposed to de-escalate violent situations. Pulling the trigger was a last resort.
Again, I'm not saying I think there was some glorious past when police malpractice was appropriately dealt with on a consistent basis, just that there was a public sense that shootings meant something went awry. Now it's enough that a cop "shoots a bad guy" and everybody (#noteverybody) just shrugs.
Again, I'm not saying I think there was some glorious past when police malpractice was appropriately dealt with on a consistent basis, just that there was a public sense that shootings meant something went awry. Now it's enough that a cop "shoots a bad guy" and everybody (#noteverybody) just shrugs.
Truly Glorious
For connoisseurs of the genre this is a glorious Inqy comment thread about the urban hellhole.
I don't spend my days going to suburban newspaper sites writing "enjoy your traffic deaths and Olive Garden losers." I don't know why so many suburbanites do the equivalent.
I don't spend my days going to suburban newspaper sites writing "enjoy your traffic deaths and Olive Garden losers." I don't know why so many suburbanites do the equivalent.
The Greatest Human Who Ever Lived
Our elites don't have insecurity issues, apparently.
Making rich people richer might have been the only legal way to help the economy, but I'm not sure how courageous it was.
The memoir by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke will be called "The Courage to Act" and is coming out in October.
Making rich people richer might have been the only legal way to help the economy, but I'm not sure how courageous it was.
Voting's Good
We should do it more.
Two black candidates are among three people elected to the Ferguson City Council, substantially increasing African American representation in the St. Louis suburb at the center of a national debate about how police interact with minority residents.
Tuesday, April 07, 2015
Good Luck, Chicago!
Rahm will probably continue his project of clearing out the poors.
Happy to be wrong.
Happy to be wrong.
Dear Ted Nugent cc: Glenn Beck, Victoria Jackson
Aside from everything else, I'm still angry that the media gaslighted the country into believing these were Very Serious People.
Doing It All Wrong
"Plenty of parking for our visitors" is the problem. If you build a bunch of "attractions" on the waterfront and surround them with acres and acres of parking lots, you ensure that any visitors just drive in and drive out. The point is?
Also, too, an ugly waterfront. The Delaware waterfront is never going to be paradise on either side, but it could be a lot better.
Also, too, an ugly waterfront. The Delaware waterfront is never going to be paradise on either side, but it could be a lot better.
Go Terry Mac
Can't make it impossible for people with criminal records to live out the rest of their lives.
RICHMOND — Gov. Terry McAuliffe on Friday ordered state agencies to remove from their employment applications questions that would disqualify job seekers on the basis of a criminal record.
McAuliffe (D) signed an executive order to “ban the box” — a reference to an item on preliminary screening forms — at a news conference at Goodwill Industries outside Richmond.
The New Default Position
Supporting Social Security expansion is both smart politics and necessary policy. All the contenders need to get on board.
Monday, April 06, 2015
Vote Chuy
Rahm will make good on fucking everything up entirely if he wins.
America's worst humans do manage to succeed so well, with high profile mentors. It is depressing.
America's worst humans do manage to succeed so well, with high profile mentors. It is depressing.
Authoritah
I don't doubt that this is 99% homophobia, but I also think there's an Authoritah element to this. Teenage "rebellion" pisses of the authoritahs more than anything, because Those Kids Today have their iphone and their hippity hop and their sexy time and I am old and everything is horrible.
It's Our City And We Hate It
One dynamic here in the urban hellhole is that one of divides between long term residents and people who are relatively new arrivals is that some long term residents just hate the place and get a bit mad that other people might like it. I am of course not talking about all long term residents, or most, just some. There was a time when "getting out" of Philadelphia was the thing. Your successful peers did it, and you did not. They moved to the glorious western suburbs or South Jersey and left you behind. It was a thing from a particular time, when people came of age during the worst days of the city's decline. It feeds the entrenched belief in various corners of our city government that all "new arrivals" (realize some of these arrivals aren't so new anymore) will inevitably leave. Because that's what one does.
Get Off My Lawn
I get that not all change is good, that people can lament the fact that every other storefront in Manhattan is now a bank or a pharmacy (exaggeration! calm down). But once you start getting enraged that The Kids Today just aren't keeping it real like The Kids Yesterday, you're just getting old. Yeah it sucks that styles change and you went from having your finger on the pulse to not, but, hey, things change. Pretty sure some Real New Yorkers, transplants or not, are doing some pretty cool music and art and theater and hopefully managing to survive despite the absurd rents that The Kids Yesterday did not have to pay. And, yeah, pretty sure The Kids Yesterday, especially the arty bohemian crowd, had a wee bit of narcissism because arty bohemian kids tend to be a bit narcissistic.
...to be clear, the writer in the linked post isn't being enraged at The Kids Today, he's discussing somebody else who is.
...to be clear, the writer in the linked post isn't being enraged at The Kids Today, he's discussing somebody else who is.
I Suppose That's A Problem
This is one of those things I just don't have any good sense of. A lot of people say, essentially, that you just have to curtail agricultural water use and all will be well. Probably mostly true! But all they're doing is attempting to modestly curtail residential water use, so...
In some places, water tables have dropped 50 feet or more in just a few years. With less underground water to buoy it, the land surface is sinking as much as a foot a year in spots, causing roads to buckle and bridges to crack. Shallow wells have run dry, depriving several poor communities of water.
Scientists say some of the underground water-storing formations so critical to California’s future — typically, saturated layers of sand or clay — are being permanently damaged by the excess pumping, and will never again store as much water as farmers are pulling out.
ONE MILLION JOBS
Saint Reagan truly was a wizard.
Some of this recycled hooey gets in the brains of conservatives and they don't realize it's hooey. Will's been around awhile. He knows.
Some of this recycled hooey gets in the brains of conservatives and they don't realize it's hooey. Will's been around awhile. He knows.
Sunday, April 05, 2015
Sunday Later Night
Was well enough to leave the house today, so that was a bonus.
Which grifter is going to decide to "run for president" this week?
Which grifter is going to decide to "run for president" this week?
Sacrifice Is For The Poors
As it should be.
There are few signs of California’s epic drought along a stretch of Maple Drive in Beverly Hills.
Deep green front lawns stretch out, dotted with healthy trees and sculpted foliage. The only brown lawn in sight was at a home under construction.
Nobody Could Have Predicted
"Missile defense" was always the least likely to work dumb idea.
Why we can't have nice things.
Also, too:
I'm sure we'll find the money for that, too. No worries.
Why we can't have nice things.
Also, too:
The project not only wasted taxpayer money but left a hole in the nation’s defenses. The money spent on it could have gone toward land-based radars with a greater capability to track long-range missiles, according to experts who have studied the issue.
I'm sure we'll find the money for that, too. No worries.
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