Saturday, August 16, 2014
Worst. Idea. Ever.
Governor Nixon just ordered a curfew in Ferguson. Making everyone who goes outside a criminal is totally the smart thing to do.
oy
oy
Friday, August 15, 2014
Mo'ne
Congrats to her on pitching a shutout game.
Anyone who has watched a bit of high school field hockey knows that "girl games" aren't necessarily gentle, and on what planet is baseball not "female friendly?"
Anyone who has watched a bit of high school field hockey knows that "girl games" aren't necessarily gentle, and on what planet is baseball not "female friendly?"
Those People
In the suburb/exurb of my teen years, there was one black family living in the neighborhood. And, yes, everybody in the neighborhood knew precisely which house they lived in. I'm not saying they faced any overt hostility (maybe they did? don't know), or were excluded from the social activities of the neighborhood, though it wasn't a neighborhood with many neighborly social activities. But there was a black family. We knew where they were.
Must Credit The Right
People who live in communities most affected by police militarization are, you know, Democrats and liberals. Also, poor people and black people who no one ever listens to. Still it's always those cool kids on the right who are out in front on all of the important issues.
Clean The Damn Streets
While putting a new coat of paint on the city just for visitors would be a bit annoying, if the DNC comes to Philly and they don't engage in a massive street cleaning effort beforehand it'll show how clueless the powers that be are.
Kicking The Blahs And The Poors
Not going to say anything that isn't totally obvious here, but the degree to which police feel free to abuse the local population depends on the race and socioeconomic status of the individuals and the neighborhood generally. Take your baton to a rich white person and you might actually face some consequences. Bullets in the back of a young black guy who is presumably guilty of something - we just need to figure out what - and you probably won't.
The only point of racist stop and frisk policies is to find excuses to arrest young black males. If you frisk people you might find weapons or drugs. That's it. Everybody but black people in this country are supposed to be carrying guns on them at all times and disproportionately locking up black people for their drug use is completely racist, even if my local African-American mayor likes to pretend he's unaware of this point.
The only point of racist stop and frisk policies is to find excuses to arrest young black males. If you frisk people you might find weapons or drugs. That's it. Everybody but black people in this country are supposed to be carrying guns on them at all times and disproportionately locking up black people for their drug use is completely racist, even if my local African-American mayor likes to pretend he's unaware of this point.
Don't Shoot
I just don't get the mentality of thinking it's ok to shoot an intruder without having any sense of whether they are a threat or not. Ok, fine, if someone points a gun at you. Otherwise?
A Loudoun County sheriff’s deputy shot his teenage daughter at their Winchester home after mistaking her for an intruder, then crashed his car as he tried to race her to the hospital, according to the Frederick County Sheriff’s Office.
Thursday, August 14, 2014
Stuck In The Middle With You
I'm sure I succumb to this sometimes, but I still get enraged when pundits pull the "straw men to the left of me, straw men to the right" game. It's such a lazy way to express an idea. There are other ways to advocate a position than setting it off against imaginary opponents.
48,000 Is A Lot
People tend to compare "entire road network" to "one limited transit line" when thinking about ridership. The capacity of one highway lane with just the perfect amount of traffic (meaning full capacity but not congested overcapacity) is optimistically 24,000 40,000 per day. Of course that's not how highways work in practice. At peak times they're congested, and at off peak times they're undercapacity. 48,000 daily ridership is a lot.
The Transit Pass Problem
One reason it's difficult to quantify how well expanded transit service does, revenue wise, is that lots of people use weekly or monthly passes so you don't actually get any more revenue. It's why many transit services resist later or overnight service. Of course longer term you might get more revenue in that more people decide it's worth it to buy a pass. Revenue matters, but passenger numbers matter too.
(G)Libertarianism
The thing is that liberals see most self-identified libertarians as being completely full of shit. At best, they're in the "I've got mine screw you" and "freedom for me but not for thee" crowds, at worst they're complete sociopaths.
But leaving behind the degree of fullofshitness, there is a liberal view of abuse of state power which self-described libertarians often mention but rarely get that passionate about. Much better to fret about high taxes or occupational licensing. Unwarranted mass incarceration, unaccountable police brutality, authorizing the state to kill its own citizens, absurd civil forfeiture procedures... these are all clear abuses of state power! Much of the rest of it is just a debate over what should be appropriate policies, not whether they're abuses (though glibertarians tend to call anything they don't like an abuse of state power).
There are people such as Radley Balko who take this stuff on! Good for them! Liberals would like libertarians more if they spent more time on the militarization of the police and the approved abuse of (especially) minority populations rather than, say, seatbelt laws and top marginal tax rates. Because top marginal tax rates aren't actually a libertarian issue, just a conservative one.
But leaving behind the degree of fullofshitness, there is a liberal view of abuse of state power which self-described libertarians often mention but rarely get that passionate about. Much better to fret about high taxes or occupational licensing. Unwarranted mass incarceration, unaccountable police brutality, authorizing the state to kill its own citizens, absurd civil forfeiture procedures... these are all clear abuses of state power! Much of the rest of it is just a debate over what should be appropriate policies, not whether they're abuses (though glibertarians tend to call anything they don't like an abuse of state power).
There are people such as Radley Balko who take this stuff on! Good for them! Liberals would like libertarians more if they spent more time on the militarization of the police and the approved abuse of (especially) minority populations rather than, say, seatbelt laws and top marginal tax rates. Because top marginal tax rates aren't actually a libertarian issue, just a conservative one.
Paid Sockpuppetry
Not so much for the post, but for the rather obvious sockpuppets the commenters unearth.
Displaced
Against doctor's advice, I'm watching cable news, and there's this guy from the Pentagon telling me that 1.5 million Iraqis have been displaced since ISIS showed up. No defense of ISIS, but that just sounds like a total bullshit number. That's, you know, the population of Philadelphia.
Scary Black People
The New Black Panther Party is basically 4 guys in Philly. OK that's not entirely true, but close enough.
My vast experience reading the comments sections of newspapers informs me that a lot of white people really believe that if they step one foot over the invisible line into a black urbanish neighborhood that they'll be instantly slaughtered by the post-apocalyptic super-predators who reside there.
My vast experience reading the comments sections of newspapers informs me that a lot of white people really believe that if they step one foot over the invisible line into a black urbanish neighborhood that they'll be instantly slaughtered by the post-apocalyptic super-predators who reside there.
Journamalism
I don't know how much Joe Scarborough gets paid, but presumably it's a lot. Whenever I hear about the lack of money for "real journalism" I think about people like him. He gets paid a lot of money to be a rich smug asshole on teevee for reasons nobody except the MSNBC brass understands.
If you notionally work in the field of "journalism" and your response to journalists being ordered to turn off their cameras and leave from a tear gas soaked area where no satellite trucks could get to is that they're just attention seeking whores who should do as they're told, well...
If you notionally work in the field of "journalism" and your response to journalists being ordered to turn off their cameras and leave from a tear gas soaked area where no satellite trucks could get to is that they're just attention seeking whores who should do as they're told, well...
Outside Agitators
You know, it's not at all inaccurate to blame the Ferguson nightmare on "outside agitators."
That's a perfectly apt way to describe these cops and what they're doing.
Wednesday, August 13, 2014
Summit
Message: Pretend to do something.
The idea that the economic health of Atlantic City is especially important to New Jersey is silly. It's gotten so much focus from politicians over the years. Obviously the economic health of AC matters to the people who are going to lose their jobs, etc. I'm not minimizing that. It's just that New Jersey's a big place. AC isn't that big.
Governor Chris Christie has announced that he will convene a bipartisan summit of state and local leaders to address the future of Atlantic City and kick off a working group to address the challenges confronting Atlantic City and its changing landscape.
The idea that the economic health of Atlantic City is especially important to New Jersey is silly. It's gotten so much focus from politicians over the years. Obviously the economic health of AC matters to the people who are going to lose their jobs, etc. I'm not minimizing that. It's just that New Jersey's a big place. AC isn't that big.
Generation Lead
I know this is less quantifiable, though perhaps one could tease out some data on things like "bar fight arrests," but if the more directly quantifiable effects of lead are true, then other effects are likely present. Lead created a lot of assholes.
DNC 2016
The committee is in town on their "where should we hold our convention" tour. Aside from the fact that it would make it easy for me to attend, I don't particularly care if it's here, and I don't want a fairly broke city shelling out any money for it, but the truth is Philly probably is the best place in the country (that I'm aware of, of course, I am not omniscient) for such an event.
I've been to a few of these things. There's the main event, and the side events. The main event is the big thing, of course. You need a basketball arena. You need to make the security people happy, meaning for better or for worse they need to be able construct a security zone around the arena. That security zone ideally shouldn't, you know, shut down a big part of your city. You need people to be able to get to and from, and in and out of, the arena without too much (of course, there is a lot) hassle.
The arena isn't in the middle of the city here, but it is accessible by a quick subway ride. Security people for these things seem to be frightened by rail. They shut it down in Boston in 2004 and in Denver in 2008 (ridiculous given that buses are a much greater threat potential), but hopefully the station is just far enough away from the arena that they wouldn't do that here. A security zone might bug a few residential blocks in South Philly, but wouldn't be that much of a big deal.
Then you need to house a hell of a lot of people. I'm not sure if the exact numbers on Philly hotel rooms, but we have quite a lot within good range of the arena. And there's good transit out to Jersey and the burbs to add on to that.
Aside from the main event, there are side events. You need conference rooms and bars and restaurants to host all of the various delegate happy hours and interest group shindigs and whatnot. Philly has plenty of that within easy access of the arena.
I've been to a few of these things. There's the main event, and the side events. The main event is the big thing, of course. You need a basketball arena. You need to make the security people happy, meaning for better or for worse they need to be able construct a security zone around the arena. That security zone ideally shouldn't, you know, shut down a big part of your city. You need people to be able to get to and from, and in and out of, the arena without too much (of course, there is a lot) hassle.
The arena isn't in the middle of the city here, but it is accessible by a quick subway ride. Security people for these things seem to be frightened by rail. They shut it down in Boston in 2004 and in Denver in 2008 (ridiculous given that buses are a much greater threat potential), but hopefully the station is just far enough away from the arena that they wouldn't do that here. A security zone might bug a few residential blocks in South Philly, but wouldn't be that much of a big deal.
Then you need to house a hell of a lot of people. I'm not sure if the exact numbers on Philly hotel rooms, but we have quite a lot within good range of the arena. And there's good transit out to Jersey and the burbs to add on to that.
Aside from the main event, there are side events. You need conference rooms and bars and restaurants to host all of the various delegate happy hours and interest group shindigs and whatnot. Philly has plenty of that within easy access of the arena.
Baloney Wars
Michael Kelly was one of the most vicious Iraq war advocates, perhaps second only to Andrew Sullivan. Vicious in that he wanted war, but was most interested in lobbing grenades at those who didn't. I offer no defense of Senator Clinton's vote for the Iraq war, but that "baloney war" happened in large part due to people like Michael Kelly. To elide that fact is ridiculous.
...more.
...more.
Gore’s speech was one no decent politician could have delivered. It was dishonest, cheap, low. It was hollow. It was bereft of policy, of solutions, of constructive ideas, very nearly of facts — bereft of anything other than taunts and jibes and embarrassingly obvious lies. It was breathtakingly hypocritical, a naked political assault delivered in tones of moral condescension from a man pretending to be superior to mere politics. It was wretched. It was vile. It was contemptible. But I understate.
The Divine Revel
No one seems to be very optimistic that there's anything that can be done with the building.
What a mess. Heckuva job, Chris Christie.
"The milk has been spilled on this building. And despite how it has been touted, Revel is really a good example of everything that is actually bad about casinos," said Cape May architect Michael Calafati.
"It's a hermetically sealed . . . big-box structure that sort of sits on the Boardwalk and doesn't necessarily interact with what is around it the way the former grand hotels of Atlantic City once did, like the Dennis Hotel or later the Claridge," Calafati said.
What a mess. Heckuva job, Chris Christie.
Morning Thread
Interesting factoid on the local news last night. It costs $3 million/month just to keep the electricity going for the Revel Casino in Atlantic City. I'm thinking a day trip just to see the monstrosity up close and personal.
Tuesday, August 12, 2014
Nice Work
Never screw up, always screw down...
A former Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor and his son agreed to plead guilty to charges stemming from a scheme to lure investors to their hedge fund with false promises about investment strategies, according to federal prosecutors.
Gabriel Bitran, a former professor and associate dean of MIT’s Sloan School of Management, and his son, Marco Bitran, lied to investors in GMB Capital Management LLC who provided more than $500 million to the fund, prosecutors in Boston said. The Bitrans’ funds incurred losses of more than $140 million of investors’ money while they paid themselves millions of dollars in management fees, prosecutors said.
Empty Buildings
I'm a bit curious what will happen to Revel after it closes. It seems the entity which owns it is barely functioning. One unmonitored pipe burst and you have an uninhabitable building. Empty buildings don't last long.
Who Can Say
A good column from the public editor about the bullshit coverage of the fake Rick Perlstein "plagiarism" story.
Buy Rick's book and make the cult of Reagan cry.
Buy Rick's book and make the cult of Reagan cry.
Extraction
I've said it before, but Atlantic City is failing because they had 40 years to take all of that money they were vacuuming up and use it to create a nice place and they didn't. I don't have any problem with legalized gambling, it's just not a strategy for any sort of local economic development, especially if none of the money is actually used for economic development. It's probably the wrong long run strategy, but casinos are designed to trap people inside, to ensure every dollar gets spent inside, and the people who run them aren't interested in any positive spillovers to neighboring businesses. AC could be a perfectly nice beach city with casinos. But it won't be.
Heckuva Job
Christie doesn't get enough attention for his love of lighting taxpayer money on fire for stupid projects.
And now...
— New Jersey’s economic development agency, citing the prospect of thousands of jobs and billions in future tax revenue, approved tax incentives Tuesday to help complete the financing for the half-finished Revel casino project.
And now...
ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) — Atlantic City’s Revel Casino Hotel says it will shut down in September after failing to find a buyer in bankruptcy court.
The company announced the move Tuesday, saying it would close its doors Sept. 10.
The $2.4 billion casino opened just over two years ago, and never turned a profit.
Monday, August 11, 2014
The View From Somewhere
I don't want to get to deep into it, but once upon a time I was annoyed about all of the people trying to make blogging "respectable" by pretending they were doing the interesting/entertaining/funny blogwriting while still being nonideological blahblahblah. Can't do any of that without having an identifiable perspective. Seems to be less of a thing now.
Teachout-Wu
I thought the ballot challenge was wrong but not entirely insane, but the judge has kept Teachout on the ballot. Consider giving a wee donation to defeat the horrible Cuomo.
In America, We Are Incredibly Generous To Poor People
No, really, we are. We spend massive amounts of money to provide them with free food and lodging. I don't know why the liberal media covers up this fact.
Clang
States usually don't turn down free money. Yes, it's free money for those people, but ultimately that money is going to flow into the pockets of doctors and hospitals.
Arming And Arming
We'll blow up the weapons we gave to the last good guys and give some weapons to the new good guys.
People are always telling me "the Kurds really are the good guys!!!" And, ok, fine, but that's not really the point. The point is our only strategy ever is to increase the probability of killing. Because weapons.
The US has begun shipping arms and ammunition to the Iraqi Kurdish forces fighting IS, a State Department spokeswoman has confirmed.
“We’re working with the government of Iraq to increasingly and very quickly get urgently needed arms to the Kurds,” Marie Harf told CNN.
People are always telling me "the Kurds really are the good guys!!!" And, ok, fine, but that's not really the point. The point is our only strategy ever is to increase the probability of killing. Because weapons.
Sunday, August 10, 2014
Getting Clean
I think the first time I heard about local chef/restaurateur Mike Solomonov was hearing the tale of how he was having a nightmare of a time opening his restaurant, Zahav, and was wasting away the hours in frustration at one of my local dive bars. In exchange for improving their menu, they had to hire his chefs.
Always strains me to link to a Panchito story, but a good tale of beating addiction.
Always strains me to link to a Panchito story, but a good tale of beating addiction.
Arming! Training!
I know we spend stupid amounts of money creating a giant data center to store your sexts on our very serious intelligence agencies who of course can tell, perhaps with a high tech sorting hat, who is in Slytherin and who is in Gryffindor, but the idea that we really have the human intelligence to know who the "good rebels" are and that if we dump a few warehouses of guns and missiles on them they'll be able to put them to good use is just absurd. We cannot know that. This is just an impossible bit of knowledge in a volatile civil war situation. We can pick sides, but the side will always only be "that guy is bad, so his enemies must be better."
In The Bubble
I think Dems mostly will defend Obama's "hawkishness" (to whatever extent you think that exists) but Clinton's rhetoric is the easiest way to bring the anti-Clinton band back together. Odd.
More arming! More training!
Well, his former secretary of state, Hillary Rodham Clinton, isn’t buying it. In an interview with me earlier this week, she used her sharpest language yet to describe the "failure" that resulted from the decision to keep the U.S. on the sidelines during the first phase of the Syrian uprising.
“The failure to help build up a credible fighting force of the people who were the originators of the protests against Assad—there were Islamists, there were secularists, there was everything in the middle—the failure to do that left a big vacuum, which the jihadists have now filled,” Clinton said.
More arming! More training!
Fear Fear Fear
Lindsey Graham is DC media's idea of a Very Serious Person.
Wolverines will save us!
"If he does not go on the offensive against ISIS, ISIL -- whatever you want to call these guys -- they are coming here," he added. "This is just not about Baghdad, this is just not about Syria, this is about our homeland. And if we get attacked because he has no strategy to protect us, then he will have committed a blunder for the ages."
Wolverines will save us!
Horrible Laws
I hate curfew laws.
Just criminalizes being a teenager, teaches kids that being outside is somehow wrong.
Under the city's previous curfew, unchaperoned children under 17 had to be home by 11 p.m. during the week and midnight on weekends. On Friday that changed to 9 p.m. for children under 14. Ages 14 to 16 are required to be home by 10 on school nights and 11 p.m. on weekends.
Just criminalizes being a teenager, teaches kids that being outside is somehow wrong.
The Greatest Trick The Devil Ever Pulled
Was convincing people to use the term "urban sprawl" when they mean "suburban sprawl."
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