Rock on.
Saturday, March 07, 2015
Nobody Could Have Predicted
But, really, can we just get a real "chip and pin" credit card system like the rest of the world has?
Menus
Not that I care much for the fortunes of McDonald's, and I'm rarely in them except for perhaps the occasional visit during a rare road trip, but if I were to offer advice it'd be: make the damn menus simple and readable. I'm not sure exactly what it is but it takes me 5 minutes just to figure out what the item I am considering buying costs. Maybe it's the screens, maybe it's the fact that they front the "value meals" or whatever they're called and hide the individual items, but I find them to be incomprehensible.
Morning Thread
Yannow, people, as Digby notes, children aren't pets. They can't be "re-homed" because you've decided you don't like them. This is kind of basic to being a parent. Reuters did a pretty comprehensive piece on the subject a couple of years ago. Americans Use the Internet to Abandon Children Adopted From Overseas.
Friday, March 06, 2015
Fuck You, Lewis
I'm certainly not one to fall on to the fainting couch over a bit of profanity, but thinking "fuck you" was a debate winning phrase was something I got over at about age 14. The problem isn't that Rahm's a rude hothead, it's that he's a crass asshole who isn't very bright. Also, bad man. boo.
Friday Crass Commercialism
I've only met Daniel a couple of times, but we have a lot of mutual friends and the New York Times likes his new book so you should buy it.
Special Interest Groups
For America's Worst Editorial Board, the poors, schoolkids, and the mentally ill are "special interest groups."
Charter school operators are, of course, The Real Americans.
Charter school operators are, of course, The Real Americans.
Consultants
If you mange to find work for yourself doing job candidate searches, you should probably be vaguely familiar with anti-discrimination laws...
Issues Millenials Care About
Deeply, I'm sure.
But now we have Philly 3.0, a new "Super PAC" fronted by youthful leaders T.J. Hurst and Ali Perelman, that purports to represent all things millennial.
Word on the street is that they are quietly pushing some decidedly un-hip prerogatives on behalf of the group's backers - parking magnates Robert and Joe Zuritsky, of Parkway Corp.
Rumored to have millions to drop on the primary, 3.0 says it's looking to spend it on youthful, insurgent City Council candidates who will push issues millennials care about. But at least two Council hopefuls they approached were quizzed on, of all things, their support for reducing the city's parking tax, a source told us.
Thursday, March 05, 2015
Giving Away The Store
Good luck, New Jersey!
For more than a decade, the New Jersey attorney general’s office conducted a hard-fought legal battle to hold Exxon Mobil Corporation responsible for decades of environmental contamination in northern New Jersey.
But when the news came that the state had reached a deal to settle its $8.9 billion claim for about $250 million, the driving force behind the settlement was not the attorney general’s office — it was Gov. Chris Christie’s chief counsel, Christopher S. Porrino, two people familiar with the negotiations said.
Too Dense But Not Dense Enough
There really isn't a solution to LA's traffic woes, other than massive depopulation. It has too high of a population density to support the car-centric development, but as most of the development is car-centric there isn't much chance of reducing the number of cars on the road. That can and will change over time (and has to some degree), but adding a couple more freeway lanes here and there at great expense isn't going to help. Nor would building my fantasy subway network overnight if such a thing were possible. Development patterns have to change.
Safety Dance
Last time I was in New York I was struck by how poorly it serves pedestrians in many places, and I really don't see that as a "pedestrians versus cars" thing. I don't think cars in Midtown are very well-served by the fact that the sidewalks are so narrow that pedestrians spill out onto the street to avoid the crush, or that poorly timed lights lead to box blocking at every intersection; a nuisance for pedestrians, but traffic jam causing for automobiles. (Some) Drivers howl if you suggest taking a lane away for, say, wider sidewalks or a protected bike lane, but to me those 3-4 lane urban streets make things worse for drivers because aggressive drivers (and in a city of cabs there are a lot of those) are constantly switching lanes. At the very least that makes driving more stressful, though I'd imagine that quite often it actually slows things down.
Smart improvements can be win-win, hopefully they spend the money well...
Smart improvements can be win-win, hopefully they spend the money well...
Morning Thread
Even though Weather Underground is predicting 5-9" of the white stuff, I have hopes it's going to give us a miss.
Wednesday, March 04, 2015
Four
If you didn't see it, the interview David Carr did with Glenzilla, Laura Poitras and Edward Snowden, you should. Saw CitizenFour last week. It's among the best documentaries I've seen.. I'll be talking to digby about it tomorrow evening.
World-class
I think it's an incredibly stupid description of cities but I also think what the writer of this sentence:
actually meant to write was:
New York is perhaps the only world-class American city that has not yielded entirely to the whims of the automobile.
actually meant to write was:
New York is perhaps the only world-class American city.
Maybe That's Not Such A Good Job After All?
Who would have thought that years of demonizing teaches, removing worker protections, reducing salaries and benefits, and telling people that it's really only something 22-year-old Ivy grads should do for a couple of years out of college might start to convince people that maybe it isn't such an awesome career?
Really hard to comprehend.
Really hard to comprehend.
Tuesday, March 03, 2015
Add One Wheelbarrow Filled With Salt?
If sanitation workers have time to ticket, they have time to throw some salt down. Maybe they can do both at the same time?
Even if the city isn't taking responsibility for clearing sidewalks, they can at least do the properties they're ticketing. Consider the ticket a bill for the job.
Even if the city isn't taking responsibility for clearing sidewalks, they can at least do the properties they're ticketing. Consider the ticket a bill for the job.
More Fucked Up Bullshit
Not that it's surprising.
In compiling the report, federal investigators conducted hundreds of interviews, reviewed 35,000 pages of police records and analyzed race data compiled for every police stop. They concluded that, over the past two years, African-Americans — who make up about two-thirds of the city’s population — accounted for 85 percent of traffic stops, 90 percent of citations, 93 percent of arrests and 88 percent of cases in which the police used force.
Black motorists were twice as likely as whites to be searched but were less likely to be found in possession of contraband such as drugs or guns.
$10.10
The new governor continues to be good, proposing increasing the state's minimum wage to $10.10/hour. I have no idea what will get through the Republicans who run the legislative branch, but we will see..
And Even More
We've collectively decided that putting kids in 3000 pounds of metal traveling at 65 MPH is safe, while letting them walk unsupervised can potentially get them taken away from you and placed in a foster situation. Also known to be safe.
ugh.
ugh.
Shit Is Fucked Up And Bullshit
Arne Duncan is too busy looking for teachers to kick to enforce laws to help defrauded students.
Monday, March 02, 2015
Larry Summers Is A Genius
All hail the great man for concluding what many others did long ago.
But when Larry says it, it's revolutionary.
But when Larry says it, it's revolutionary.
Progress
This is mostly of local interest, but it's also a bit of progress in the war on the war on public schools.
Green's notionally a Democrat (it's Philly, anyone with political aspirations is notionally a Democrat at least at some point in their career), and then he hitched himself to the fortunes of our last (Republican) governor. Those fortunes did not prove to be so fortunate, which should have been rather obvious at the time. Dumbest. Move. Ever.
Days after Bill Green defied Gov. Wolf by voting to approve new charter schools, the governor has stripped Green of his chairmanship of the Philadelphia School Reform Commission.
Marjorie Neff, a retired Philadelphia public school principal, will be the new chair of the five-member governing body of the Philadelphia School District, she confirmed Sunday.
Green's notionally a Democrat (it's Philly, anyone with political aspirations is notionally a Democrat at least at some point in their career), and then he hitched himself to the fortunes of our last (Republican) governor. Those fortunes did not prove to be so fortunate, which should have been rather obvious at the time. Dumbest. Move. Ever.
America's Worst Humans
The City of Cleveland.
He was 12. He's dead.
But when it comes to the Nov. 22 shooting and Tamir's actual death, the city is very clear.
Tamir died because he did not "exercise due care," according to the city. The answer marches in lock step with declarations from police representatives and city leaders over the past three months. A litany of claims closes out the city's legal response, asserting that no civil rights were violated when Officer Timothy Loehmann shot the boy.
He was 12. He's dead.
Sunday, March 01, 2015
One Big Grift
I get the belief - and to a somewhat lesser extent the reality - that one needs money to win a presidential primary, but I also think it's about finding marks and fleecing them.
Long before the season of baby-kissing and caucus-going begins in early primary states, a no less decisive series of contests is playing out among the potential 2016 contenders along a trail that traces the cold-weather destinations of the wealthy and private-jet-equipped. In one resort town after another — Rancho Mirage, Calif.; Sea Island, Ga.; Las Vegas — the candidates are making their cases to exclusive gatherings of donors whose wealth, fully unleashed by the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision, has granted them the kind of influence and convening power once held by urban political bosses and party chairmen.
Even a single deep-pocketed donor can now summon virtually the entire field of candidates. No fewer than 11 Republican White House hopefuls will fly to Iowa this week to attend the Iowa Agriculture Summit organized by Bruce Rastetter, a businessman and prominent “super PAC” donor. Each will submit to questions from Mr. Rastetter, who said he wanted the candidates to educate themselves on agriculture policy.
Wakey, Wakey
Weather Underground predicting 1-3" of ice pellets this morning. I don't know why I bothered to check.
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