Drive Fast and Kill People

Here in the urban hellhole, lots more pedestrians get hit by cars in the central areas where lots of pedestrians roam. But very few people actually die in those crashes.

The fatal pedestrian crashes are mostly in the more suburbanized areas of the city where streets are wider and you can drive really fast.

Relevant to our interests

Over at Ken Layne's shiny new digs: seize the golf courses!

Reminder: avoid being a woman if you can

Privacy, schmivacy.

An expectation of legal protection against upskirt creepshots on public transit is just silly! If you didn't want someone to take pictures up your dress, you shouldn't have left the house, you harlot!

Let the Smartphone Manners Backlash Begin

We're all guilty of the smartphone rudeness sometimes, but the smartphone manners situation is really starting to gross me out a bit. People these days are all the time standing at the urinal and checking their email. Srsly dudes? You can't wait the 21 seconds?

We gotta get some norms up in here, stat. You first, politicians.

The Corner Store Menace

Sure it would be nice to have a short walk to some basic groceries, but what if some blahs hang out there? Also, too, parking.

Like a stopped clock

In that it is predictable. Unlike it in that it is wrong every minute of the day (except on Sunday when they work with David Gregory to be wrong together).

Ladies and Gentlemen, CPAC!

It only takes a decade of war to go from suck on this to we will frack you!

Oh hai! Fellow dirty hippies, I’m a labor economist located in a charming exurban hellhole and now given permission to do anything I want here as long as nobody gets sued.  So to that end you tell Vlad we are going to frack him, ya wankers!

Late-night doggie thread

Who is the best doggie in the whole world? Toby.

I'll brook no opposition on this point, even when he's a lil jerk — also, he's an anxious misandrist, just like his mom!

Feel free to discuss how handsome my dog is in the comments.

UPDATE: My friend just found an adorable stray who needs a home! If you're in the Bay Area and are interested, contact Cat Ferguson. More pics of Amos the stray dog here.

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Evening Thread

Best coast happy hour

Last night I caught a lovely Brooklyn band at a delightful and newish San Francisco venue.

Enjoy.

I get right-wing emails

For both oppo research and the lulz, I subscribe to a healthy number of right-wing email lists. (That number is always growing because the lists are bought and sold like whoa.)

In terms of actual quality of an email program, I give major props to the Senate Conservatives Fund — their emails are consistently well-written and well-designed (and don't give away the deep well of crazy just below the surface).

Then I get gems like this one, signed by Ted Nugent on behalf of Tom Tancredo's gubernatorial campaign. It warns "Real Americans" that "Barack Obama and his radical America-hating leftist goons are perilously close to taking away our guns and nullifying the Second Amendment." (I mean, probably, right?) Then he offers a chance to win an AR-15.



The email closes by telling his "American BloodBrothers" that "we can't let the clowns in some 'we the sheeple' Governor's Mansions and in the White House succeed in shredding our constitution and take away our guns. Tom Tancredo will fight for you, so stand with us today."

Fun stuff! Oh, and since I'm sure you all want to enter, here's the contest link.

Invincible to Mumia

Obviously Toomey was gonna shake the ooga booga stick about the Mumia connection, but what's Bob Casey afraid of? Dude just won an easy reelection and has a famous name. It's not the 90's anymore.

Probably The Teachers' Fault

For all of the fretting we do about the obscene pay and benefits that teachers receive, there's little attention paid to the fact that it's administrators who really are the ones who are taking all of the money.

It's class identification. Teachers are workers, administrators are bosses. Bosses can do no wrong. It's all the fault of the workers who dare to demand that they get paid.

Walking Is Weird

Unless you have mobility issues, anything under a mile walk (in a relatively pedestrian friendly area) just isn't a big deal. It's a bit fascinating to me that many people don't see this.

Pointless Elections

Here in Pennsylvania, nobody knows what our Lieutenant Governor does, which would be fine except that it's a separately elected office that's actually in charge of some important shit.

In practice I guess technically we could have an election where all those No Labels voters decide to stick a Democratic Governor with a Republican Lt. Governor, but that would be dumb even if there was any chance of it happening.

We do this with other row offices too where voters have no clue what policy questions hang in the balance in the Treasurer or Prothonotary elections, but Lt. Gov seems like a clear cut case where there's no rationale for an election.

As long as voters just think it's Governor 2, what's wrong with the Presidential model where the Exec candidate gets to pick a running mate?

Is this thing on?

Atrios went into a fugue state and decided to let me have the keys to this web log of his. I couldn't tell you why either.

Anyway. Hi! I'm Lisa McIntire, and I'm a freelance writer in San Francisco. My interests include feminism misandry, brand engagement, and my recently adopted dog named Toby.

So have you heard of this startup to fly NYC women to San Francisco to find boyfriends? It's... something.

"Economic Development"

There really is some effective stuff that states can do to help along new companies create new jobs, but it mostly gets pennies compared to the scams.

The Big Grift

There's no way a DC-Baltimore maglev costs "only" $10 billion. Labor and construction, maybe, but not the assembling of the right of way.

Because They Can

I don't know if it's always been this way or if at some point in the post-9/11 something changed, but basically our spy agencies think they can do whatever they want. And they're right. Nobody's going to go to jail, not even for spying on members of Congress.

Wanker of the Day

Paul Taylor.