I can't say I know enough about this situation, but a few years ago the current administration spent millions to take the orchestra into bankruptcy because ???.
I'm sure the CW will be that the orchestra gets paid so much money. Well, the CEO gets paid a 3-4x+ what they get paid, and after several years has a bankruptcy to show for it and ???. That bankruptcy was expensive, too. They probably spent 30 bucks just mailing me legally required notices and I hadn't even been a subscriber for a couple of years. Also, too, I'm not a lawyer billing at immense rates.
Go orchestra!
Friday, September 30, 2016
"At 3 AM the following morning, Republican nominee Ronald Rump tweeted that people should watch a sex tape..."
This novel is bullshit. No one could believe this stuff.
The Christie Way
New Jersey's two main cities are New York and Philadelphia. That's not a knock on New Jersey, it's just the way it is. Jersey has other things within its borders, but the big cities are in neighboring states. Any governor of that state should recognize the importance of good transport links to and from those cities. It wouldn't be too weird for Christie to be indifferent to mass transit. That's pretty common in the US, even if it's idiotic. But given bridgegate and games with the transportation funds generally, he hasn't been too concerned with the automobile links, either. Everything's a slush fund for the governor, you see. Governing isn't the job, self-promotion is. Though that didn't work out very well. Wrong again! Okay, this one makes me laugh, too.
They Know Even Less Than What They Say
Just the regular reminder that all of the people paid millions to tell us all it what means were scornful at the idea that Donald Trump could win the Republican primary, despite the polls telling us he probably would for months.
I'd say only the dirty hippie liberals understand the Republican electorate, but it's worse than that. Only dirty hippie liberals know how to read a fucking poll.
I'd say only the dirty hippie liberals understand the Republican electorate, but it's worse than that. Only dirty hippie liberals know how to read a fucking poll.
Thursday, September 29, 2016
ONE WHOLE MILE
I do think a lot of people have a distorted view of pedestrian distance, and one reason is that for a lot of people nearby walking is pretty miserable. I'm not arguing that an additional 22ish minutes each way on your commute, if that's what you're doing, is a nontrivial amount of time, but for people without mobility issues it isn't exactly a big physical burden. If the walk is nice, and you can do some errands along the way like stop in the supermarket or pick up your dry cleaning, or, hell, hit happy hour at your local, it might even be enjoyable/productive. Not all miles are created equal.
Habits also impact this view. On the various local/urban issue internet forums where people argue about this stuff, it's clear that people who drive for their commute are more likely to perceive a 3 block walk home from a parking spot to be a big burden, while people who depend on transit don't think much about it at all.
This is where people scream "but weather!" Yes, yes, some places are unbearably hot or unbearably cold for some months of the year. However, there aren't many places in the country that have "bad" weather - too hot, or too cold - more than 4 months per year, really. Less perfect weather, sure, but not so hot or cold that a 22 minute walk is unbearable given proper clothing. Hot's a bit more difficult than cold for people who are commuting, but even the hot places really are mostly fine the other 8 months.
Habits also impact this view. On the various local/urban issue internet forums where people argue about this stuff, it's clear that people who drive for their commute are more likely to perceive a 3 block walk home from a parking spot to be a big burden, while people who depend on transit don't think much about it at all.
This is where people scream "but weather!" Yes, yes, some places are unbearably hot or unbearably cold for some months of the year. However, there aren't many places in the country that have "bad" weather - too hot, or too cold - more than 4 months per year, really. Less perfect weather, sure, but not so hot or cold that a 22 minute walk is unbearable given proper clothing. Hot's a bit more difficult than cold for people who are commuting, but even the hot places really are mostly fine the other 8 months.
We Used To Do That
There's been chatter about some of the fever swamps of the internet (you know, the white supremacist types) getting their users to "manipulate" online polls. Not that I'm inclined to defend neo-Nazis (And I'm not, of course), but online polls should be manipulated. People on in the internets have been "manipulating" online polls about politics for as long as I can remember. The freepers at free republic call it "freeping" polls. The kids at Democratic Underground say to "DU this poll." Here we adopted Lou Dobbs for awhile and called it "torture Lou Dobbs" because we could get the results of his online polls, which he would announce on his show daily, to be the opposite of whatever you knew he wanted them to be. The point was to have a bit of fun while pointing out that the whole exercise was absurd.
Online polls are, of course, complete bullshit, and if "news" organizations wish to talk about them as being meaningful, as opposed to a game, which they have for a long time, then they get what they ask for. Random assholes on the internet aren't the ones making online polls newsworthy, it's elite news organizations. And, yes, in the past they definitely had an impact in how events like debates were covered. I've seen hosts say things like, "we thought this, but our online polls say..."
So, yes, online polls are bullshit. Stop pretending otherwise. And long before 4chan or even Eschaton World Industries, there was the Free Republic, "manipulating" every one of them. Weirdly news organizations only seem to care when they get results they don't like. Funny, that.
Online polls are, of course, complete bullshit, and if "news" organizations wish to talk about them as being meaningful, as opposed to a game, which they have for a long time, then they get what they ask for. Random assholes on the internet aren't the ones making online polls newsworthy, it's elite news organizations. And, yes, in the past they definitely had an impact in how events like debates were covered. I've seen hosts say things like, "we thought this, but our online polls say..."
So, yes, online polls are bullshit. Stop pretending otherwise. And long before 4chan or even Eschaton World Industries, there was the Free Republic, "manipulating" every one of them. Weirdly news organizations only seem to care when they get results they don't like. Funny, that.
But Does She Have Granite Countertops?
Go against whoever happens to be Dear Leader at the moment, and face the consequences.
Morning Thread
Here are some quick hits from Echidne. It's always been a puzzlement to me that so many people don't believe writers should be paid for their work. It *is* work to keep a blog active, day after day after day and some bloggers absolutely deserve to be remunerated for their toil. Echidne is one of those. Note the "donate" button on her blog and use it.
Wednesday, September 28, 2016
Smell the Freedom
TRUMP in IOWA: "Raise your hand if you're NOT a Christian conservative. I want to see that. There's a few of them. Should we keep them?"
— James Hohmann (@jameshohmann) September 28, 2016
Sad Clown
I admit I find it hard to keep up the sense of humor about things these days. We laughed a lot during the Bush years, didn't we, my fellow pony aficionados. Trump should just make me laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh. But with Bush we could sorta pretend that people voted for him because they didn't quite see him for what he was. There's no doing that with Trump. Trump is Trump. He won't win, but a lot of people... a lot of people... are going to vote for him.
Stop Whining
While conservatives/Republicans perfected the art of complaining about media bias, it is genuinely something that Both Sides do now (I am not saying Both Sides are equally full or not full of shit in their complaints). With Trump it's different, however. Normally it's the kind of thing that various surrogates do, at least publicly, not the actual candidate. Every time Trump drops his ice cream cone he whines "not fair!!!!!" Big baby.
2020
Judging whether this Penn Station proposal is any good is above my pay grade, but a 2020 completion date is, uh, not gonna happen.
Happy to be wrong! If so, I'll have my autonomous car take me to the governor so I can apologize to him personally for my wrongness.
Happy to be wrong! If so, I'll have my autonomous car take me to the governor so I can apologize to him personally for my wrongness.
Blogging is Saved!
I'll still have Xanadu to kick around.
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A New Jersey appeals court on Tuesday sided with the state in its plan to allow $1.15 billion of tax-exempt bonds to finance American Dream, the state's long-stalled mega-mall and entertainment complex.
Tuesday, September 27, 2016
So Fragile
And who will foot the bill for the bulldozers?
And then what will I blog about?
Developer tells NJ appeals court any delay in approving funding will kill long-stalled project
This week could prove to be a make-or-break one for the long-stalled American Dream megamall in the Meadowlands, thanks to a court ruling on the developer’s controversial $1.15 billion state-assisted finance plan that could be released at any time.
And then what will I blog about?
Pennsylvania Explained!
— Christopher Hayes (@chrislhayes) September 27, 2016
Undecided Pennsylvania voters who didn't love Hillary said they liked her more after she criticized private prisons https://t.co/qnJpFKDtEb
— Betsy Woodruff (@woodruffbets) September 27, 2016
As Woodruff notes, it's the Kids for Cash scandal. When a judge sells kids (and, it should be noted, too many of the "wrong" type of kids. you know, the ones you can get the media to actually care about) to for profit juvenile facilities, people start to care...
That Guy
Unlike most pundits, I don't think I'm capable of knowing what most of the rest of humanity responds positively to. I do think it's important to remember that while last night probably wasn't the best Donald, it was actually the Donald that people vote for over 16 other clown car members. Meaning, he's the guy that people liked. There were definitely moments in the debate that even Republican "Very Serious People" probably thought were awful, but I thought might have actually sounded pretty good to anybody who was considering voting for him in the first place.
Donald doesn't know anything about foreign policy, or the wider world, but neither does just about anybody else who claims to who works in politics. What people on the teevee know, some of them anyway, is "foreign policy," the very narrow set of agreed upon Washington Conventional wisdom about the types of things Very Serious People are supposed to say about "foreign policy." In other words, they've memorized some arbitrary rulebook, but they've never actually tried to play the game. Or seen it played.
As for economics, once you get outside the general Republican "taxes bad regulations bad," which is nonsense that Very Serious People have agreed isn't nonsense, the economic critique from the Right, which I suppose you'd called the Right's economic populism, is genuinely gibberish. Their critiques of trade and trade deals and the Fed are complete gibberish (not that these things are above criticism, just that the criticisms from the Right usually make no sense. They aren't just wrong, they don't follow logically from one statement to the next.) Still, it sounds good to a lot of people. Your ranty drunk racist white uncle is an archetype because there are a lot of ranty drunk racist white uncles, and they all kinda sound like that.
I'd say on theater it wasn't a great night. He let That Woman get the better of him, and that's an unforgivable sin. On "substance," he gave the people what they want.
Donald doesn't know anything about foreign policy, or the wider world, but neither does just about anybody else who claims to who works in politics. What people on the teevee know, some of them anyway, is "foreign policy," the very narrow set of agreed upon Washington Conventional wisdom about the types of things Very Serious People are supposed to say about "foreign policy." In other words, they've memorized some arbitrary rulebook, but they've never actually tried to play the game. Or seen it played.
As for economics, once you get outside the general Republican "taxes bad regulations bad," which is nonsense that Very Serious People have agreed isn't nonsense, the economic critique from the Right, which I suppose you'd called the Right's economic populism, is genuinely gibberish. Their critiques of trade and trade deals and the Fed are complete gibberish (not that these things are above criticism, just that the criticisms from the Right usually make no sense. They aren't just wrong, they don't follow logically from one statement to the next.) Still, it sounds good to a lot of people. Your ranty drunk racist white uncle is an archetype because there are a lot of ranty drunk racist white uncles, and they all kinda sound like that.
I'd say on theater it wasn't a great night. He let That Woman get the better of him, and that's an unforgivable sin. On "substance," he gave the people what they want.
That Guy?
I'm not one of those people who is desperate to find Republicans I can feel good about. Team D isn't perfect, of course, but even those nice polite Republicans generally support horrible policies. I'm not going to like any of them. But, really.. that guy? You nominated that guy? You want that guy to be president?
Okay.
Okay.
Monday, September 26, 2016
Is It Really Fair For The Moderators To Ask Questions?
Given how bad they usually are at these things, I say no! But, seriously, all the talk about what is "fair" for the moderators to do really just raises the question: what the hell is the point of them? Certainly what is the point of having people who claim to be "journalists" do the job? Have Siri read the questions fed to her and cut their mics when the time is up.
But We're Special
One of my pet peeves is places where the people who live there fancy themselves to be so special/different by the virtue of their location that the rules that apply to them/their particular needs are just somehow different than for the rest of the universe. That isn't to deny that varied local culture/norms exist at all, but I've lived in a lot of places and quite often the things that people imagine make them unique/special/different are really pretty standard stuff.
Gaming The Gaming Game
Things like debates have gotten so meta. There's more talk of meta than of substance. Sure the debates are theater, and sure these days you can (though why should you have to? there's a debate to watch!) click on a candidate website which gives you some policy information, but "we've" already spent a couple of weeks talking about the expectations game, and the game to game the expectations game, and the game to game the gaming of the expectations game, all of which is about impacting the post-debate pronouncements of pundits, who are making career choices themselves with these pronouncements. CNN has approximately 87 people on stage whose job it is to argue about what we're supposed to think about the thing we watched 5 seconds ago based on arbitrary standards they cooked up 10 seconds ago. One of them should say "fuck this" and throw down the mic, but, hey, people gotta eat.
Sunday, September 25, 2016
Distinctions
I don't actually get this one.
I guess saying someone "lied" a capital felony, while its close synonym "mislead" is just a misdemeanor because reasons? DC is a funny place.
You're right. I shouldn't have said that & I'm sorry that I did.He did mislead us and was wrong about it, however. https://t.co/t3V4z4RHpz
— Stephanie Cutter (@stefcutter) September 25, 2016
I guess saying someone "lied" a capital felony, while its close synonym "mislead" is just a misdemeanor because reasons? DC is a funny place.
Sunday Morning
Will the cameras pan to Ms. Flowers and then back again to Clinton every 30 seconds? How can it be a showdown if they don't?
Adding a link to Spocko's excellent discussion of what to expect on Monday evening over at Digby's place.
Monday's Debate is Not An Episode of America's Got Presidential Talent.
Adding a link to Spocko's excellent discussion of what to expect on Monday evening over at Digby's place.
Monday's Debate is Not An Episode of America's Got Presidential Talent.
Saturday, September 24, 2016
Another Fine Graduate of The Fournier School at Broder University
We are like two steps removed from Clinton and Trump grabbing folding chairs to start wailing on each other with on Monday night https://t.co/Bypt2Bb5o8
— Edward-Isaac Dovere (@IsaacDovere) September 24, 2016
Remember, if you're grossed out by Trump inviting Gennifer Flowers to the debate: Clinton kicked off this bit of trolling by inviting Cuban
— Edward-Isaac Dovere (@IsaacDovere) September 24, 2016
Heckuva Job
Corbyn wins Labour leadership again. I suppose those who plotted against him can plot to win their next election. I keep hearing only they have plan to do so, but I'm not sure they actually know what they're doing. Maybe that's just me.
Morning Thread
From what I'm reading, the first person who needs to pee at the debate, loses! That's what it has come to.
Friday, September 23, 2016
Shit Is Fucked Up And Bullshit
One of the stupidest (and persistent) ideas out there has been that The Internet has led to people being stuck in their little community bubbles, seeing only the information they want to see, exposed only to things that please them.
Anyone who thinks that has never found the "turn internet on" button on their personal computer machine. The internet is one big nonstop argument. Anyone who uses the book of faces gets to see the horrible things people they used to be friends with have to say about the world, and the equivalent of those email forwards your annoying uncle used to send you from his AOL account.
Anyway, when I say Trump can win, what I usually mean is: Trump can win, and this shouldn't be a big surprise. A large chunk of your fellow Americans, including your friends and relatives, will vote for him. This shouldn't be a surprise because those of us who have paid attention have known all along that this was what the Republican base wanted, and a big chunk of Republicans will vote for anyone with an R after their name (same as true of Democrats, but to a much lesser extent).
I know this because I read the internet, and sometimes it's horrible.
Anyone who thinks that has never found the "turn internet on" button on their personal computer machine. The internet is one big nonstop argument. Anyone who uses the book of faces gets to see the horrible things people they used to be friends with have to say about the world, and the equivalent of those email forwards your annoying uncle used to send you from his AOL account.
Anyway, when I say Trump can win, what I usually mean is: Trump can win, and this shouldn't be a big surprise. A large chunk of your fellow Americans, including your friends and relatives, will vote for him. This shouldn't be a surprise because those of us who have paid attention have known all along that this was what the Republican base wanted, and a big chunk of Republicans will vote for anyone with an R after their name (same as true of Democrats, but to a much lesser extent).
I know this because I read the internet, and sometimes it's horrible.
America's Worst Humans
Glenn Reynolds.
People who encourage others to do fatal violence really anger me. I doubt ye old perfesser would actually gun the accelerator into a crowd, not because I think he's too good for that (actually he's a monster who thinks it's uncontroversial that everyone else is too), but because he's too cowardly. People might call him a monster!
Armchair generals we will always have with us.
People who encourage others to do fatal violence really anger me. I doubt ye old perfesser would actually gun the accelerator into a crowd, not because I think he's too good for that (actually he's a monster who thinks it's uncontroversial that everyone else is too), but because he's too cowardly. People might call him a monster!
Armchair generals we will always have with us.
"the revolutionary transportation technology"....
...that doesn't yet exist.
So what can we do?
Ah. "heavily subsidized." A cunning plan!
The grifters know that the public trough is the only way to keep this scam going. The fierce independence of the techbro!
And people wonder why I obsess about this stuff. Let technology that doesn't even exist solve a problem it wouldn't be capable of solving even if it did! With subsidies!
In mid-July, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority announced that the L train, one of the main transit connections between Brooklyn and Manhattan, will close down in January 2019. During the 18-month outage, workers will address repairs necessitated by Hurricane Sandy damage. It’s a big problem for Brooklyn — and one of the largest disruptions in the subway system’s century-plus history.
But the timing of the shutdown presents a unique opportunity: to make New York’s rising tech hub a test bed for autonomous vehicles — specifically, an autonomous vehicle-based taxi system in the tract of Brooklyn served by the L
So what can we do?
Here’s how a rollout would work. New York City would invite one or more companies planning to test autonomous vehicles to deploy a fleet of autonomous taxis in Brooklyn — soon. The city could offer heavily subsidized rides to anyone wanting to cross to and from Manhattan.
Ah. "heavily subsidized." A cunning plan!
The grifters know that the public trough is the only way to keep this scam going. The fierce independence of the techbro!
And people wonder why I obsess about this stuff. Let technology that doesn't even exist solve a problem it wouldn't be capable of solving even if it did! With subsidies!
Thursday, September 22, 2016
I See The Future
If Trump wins, he will be the first legally elected president since George W. Bush, and perhaps our reigning monarch, the greatest Republican, no the greatest person, in American history.
If he loses, he won't really have been the real representative of the current Republican party, just a pretender, an aberration. As such, Hillary Clinton's election will be illegitimate. She won't have really won an election. It isn't even clear, really, if a woman is allowed by the constitution to be president. Certainly not what the founders intended. We'll have to wait until the next president, or perhaps the one after that, before anyone new gets on the Supreme Court.
If he loses, he won't really have been the real representative of the current Republican party, just a pretender, an aberration. As such, Hillary Clinton's election will be illegitimate. She won't have really won an election. It isn't even clear, really, if a woman is allowed by the constitution to be president. Certainly not what the founders intended. We'll have to wait until the next president, or perhaps the one after that, before anyone new gets on the Supreme Court.
Thursday Crass Commercialism
I'm no expert on the latest tech gadgets, so do your own research and don't listen to me, but so far I've been pleased with the Roku stick as a toy/tool for cordcutters or wannabe cordcutters.
Please Provide Massive Government Subsidies For My Vaporware
Cool plan, techbro.
And people wonder why I obsess about this...
To speed the transition, governments may give drivers financial incentives to replace their cars with autonomous vehicles, similar to the Cash for Clunkers program offered in 2009 to get gas guzzlers off the road, Google’s Medford said.
And people wonder why I obsess about this...
All Our Dreams Torn Asunder
Oh well...
Oh well...
Fool me once, don't get fooled again, two months later...Wait, didn't we already hear this?
For realsie this time, pinkie swear.
Triple Five, owned by Edmonton’s Ghermezian family, scrapped the Xanadu name and veered from the retail-heavy plan, adopting the entertainment component from two of its properties, the Mall of America in Minnesota and the West Edmonton Mall. In May 2011, it projected American Dream would open in 2013 and would attract 55 million visitors a year. Since then, the company has scaled back its forecast to 40 million visitors.
Oh well...
The company took over the failed Xanadu project in 2010 and workers finally returned to the site this summer after signing a Project Labor Agreement in April. The opening date for American Dream Meadowlands, now estimated at fall 2016, no longer sounds unrealistic.
“I’m not a betting man, but I would bet on it,” Jeff Sheckter, Triple Five’s executive vice president, said in July.
Fool me once, don't get fooled again, two months later...Wait, didn't we already hear this?
EAST RUTHEFORD, N.J. (CBSNewYork) — After 12 years of financial troubles and delays, the American Dream megamall and entertainment center in the Meadowlands could finally open in fall 2016.Time keeps on slipping, slipping...
The target date was announced by the mammoth complex’s developer, Triple Five, WCBS 880’s Sean Adams reported.
Initially proposed in 2003, the project's first developer went bankrupt and the second was forced to surrender control after losing financing. After sitting idle for two years, a third developer, the Triple Five, was brought in to complete construction in 2011.
The developer now claims that the American Dream Meadowlands mall will be completed in 2017 — with one caveat: They'll need $1 billion in bonds to be sold by government entities to provide the remainder of the financing required to complete the project.
For realsie this time, pinkie swear.
The developer expects to finish American Dream in summer 2018.
Wednesday, September 21, 2016
Stop Killing People
The killing of unarmed black people by police happens so regularly now that I can't keep the details straight from one to the other. Of course we only hear about some of them, and we mostly only hear about the situations with video evidence or other details which make it difficult for the police to credibly claim that they were threatened.
But even being threatened shouldn't be enough for a summary execution. It's their job to know how to de-escalate situations. That might not always work, but often it seems they don't even think about trying.
But even being threatened shouldn't be enough for a summary execution. It's their job to know how to de-escalate situations. That might not always work, but often it seems they don't even think about trying.
I Knew I'd Lose This War
Back before I obsessed about driverless cars (won't work), I obsessed about replacing gas taxes with mileage fees. The reasoning used to be that gas taxes were so unpopular that the only way to raise them was to institute an exciting new tax that was much more complicated and expensive to administer and enforce. No this never made any sense to me. The gas tax also has the benefit of mildly pushing the incentives in the right direction in that it rewards improved gas mileage (including zero emission) and therefore smaller cars (much less road damage). But a mileage tax always sounded cool because reasons, and now I guess the fact that you can have a technology doohickey that you could have even without the tax is even another reason.
But, really, the main reason to stick with the gas tax is that you already have an administration and enforcement agency on an industry - gas stations - that is pretty highly regulated anyway. It's a lot more difficult to bill/collect/administer for every driver than it is to do it for a relatively small number of gas stations. Full employment for collections agencies, I guess. Also, too, out of state driver problem.
But nobody listens to Atrios, and the new tax is cool!
But, really, the main reason to stick with the gas tax is that you already have an administration and enforcement agency on an industry - gas stations - that is pretty highly regulated anyway. It's a lot more difficult to bill/collect/administer for every driver than it is to do it for a relatively small number of gas stations. Full employment for collections agencies, I guess. Also, too, out of state driver problem.
But nobody listens to Atrios, and the new tax is cool!
What's Good For London
London has been slowly clawing back the disastrous privatization of rail where possible. Meanwhile, privatized (and subsidized - twofer!) public transit elsewhere in the country has had fare hikes and service reductions. Force local authorities with limited taxing ability to subsidize private operators, and then cut the budgets for those authorities.
Not too surprising that the rest of the country wonders why London gets all of the nice things....
Not too surprising that the rest of the country wonders why London gets all of the nice things....
Trump Can Win
I know when I assert that in posts some see it as some sort of criticism of the Clinton campaign. I do have criticisms of the campaign - I'm sure you do too! - but failing to take Trump seriously has never been one of them.
But, he can win! He won't (most likely), but he can...
But, he can win! He won't (most likely), but he can...
Can We Have A Free Road For Our Vaporware?
And, yes, title aside, autonomous cars can probably work fine on dedicated stretches of highway. Guess we'd all better run out and buy one.
Vancouver and Seattle should be connected by a driverless highway, according to some high-tech entrepreneurs.
The proposal, which involves dedicating at least one lane on the I-5 from Seattle to Highway 99 in Richmond, B.C., is a pitch that comes from Tom Alberg, a board member of Amazon, Craig Mundie, a former Microsoft executive, along with two other high tech industry experts.
Tuesday, September 20, 2016
No Worries Here
Every 4 years Republicans and media people claim that Pennsylvania might just go Republican this year, and every 4 years it doesn't. It isn't quite as stupid as the "Jewish voters might vote Republican" narrative, which also pops up every 4 years, but close.
If a Republican wins PA, it'll be in a national landslide election. It won't be the state that puts one over the top. In presidential elections, Philly votes Dem, Pittsburgh votes Dem, the Philly suburbs lean/vote Dem, and there just aren't enough people in the rest of the state.
But every 4 years...
If a Republican wins PA, it'll be in a national landslide election. It won't be the state that puts one over the top. In presidential elections, Philly votes Dem, Pittsburgh votes Dem, the Philly suburbs lean/vote Dem, and there just aren't enough people in the rest of the state.
But every 4 years...
"Somewhere in Heaven, Norman Rockwell is Smiling"
I was hunting for something else, and came upon this spot-on Onion parody of how conservatives wrote about Sarah Palin before the 2008 election, written in the voice of David Brooks.
Where Does It Come From
We like to think our society is in general getting a bit less racist. I think that's probably true, and that it's probably true that The Kids Today are a bit less racist than my generation was (when I was a kid explicitly racist jokes were really not taboo, though by the time I hit college they probably were). Still there's plenty of racism, and The Kids Today have plenty of racists, too. I'm not talking about the kids being idiots stuff, like halloween blackface*, I'm talking about real solid racism. I know where all the racism came from when I was a kid. It was, you know, normal. I'm not quite sure where they get it from today.
*I'm not saying that such things are merely stupid or suggesting they're harmless, just that some of it you can chalk up to stupidity more than antipathy.
*I'm not saying that such things are merely stupid or suggesting they're harmless, just that some of it you can chalk up to stupidity more than antipathy.
The Kids Today
The savvy thing for liberal pundits to do is to write think pieces that millennials will never read about how stupid millennials are for considering voting for 3rd parties, even though millennials (according to polls) are voting for Team D in a higher proportion than any other age group. Amazingly they figured that out without the sage wisdom from their elders, who are voting for Trump. Stupid Kids Today!
So apparently the Kids Today are going to save us from Trump, but damn Those Kids Today with their iPods and their hippity hop and their snapfacing!!! Not enough of them are voting for Clinton!!!
Hope I die before I get old. Oh well, too late.
Anyway, The Kids Are Alright. If people want to start hectoring generations, hector the assholes that are actually going to vote for Trump. I admit those "Why We Are The Worst Generation" essays are a lot less fun to write than the "Kids Get Off My Lawn" essays, but in this context, at least, a bit more accurate.
So apparently the Kids Today are going to save us from Trump, but damn Those Kids Today with their iPods and their hippity hop and their snapfacing!!! Not enough of them are voting for Clinton!!!
Hope I die before I get old. Oh well, too late.
Anyway, The Kids Are Alright. If people want to start hectoring generations, hector the assholes that are actually going to vote for Trump. I admit those "Why We Are The Worst Generation" essays are a lot less fun to write than the "Kids Get Off My Lawn" essays, but in this context, at least, a bit more accurate.
No Front Page Spread?
Conservatives might not be good at figuring out the internet, but they're usually good at getting front page coverage of their latest "we've figured out the internet!!!!@!@@!" project. Must be slipping if the National Review is the best they can do.
Of course the founder named it after himself (not just the Cody<->Codias bit, his name is actually Codias). Where oh where could conservatives find each other before Codias came along? I have never come across one on the internet before???
The site is hilarious (you can find it yourself). It'll be gone within the year.
Of course the founder named it after himself (not just the Cody<->Codias bit, his name is actually Codias). Where oh where could conservatives find each other before Codias came along? I have never come across one on the internet before???
The site is hilarious (you can find it yourself). It'll be gone within the year.
Monday, September 19, 2016
Journalists Against Journalism
Whatever one thinks of Snowden's actions, the people who really made it public - and made determinations of what was or wasn't in the public interest to reveal - were the journalists. It's quite impressive that the WaPo editorial board has come out with both barrels against their own journalists.
There isn't necessarily a contradiction between arguing that Snowden should be prosecuted for his handling of the information and saying that nonetheless it was in the public interest to publish the information. You can argue that whistleblowers perform an important function, but that nonetheless the law is the law so they'll just have to fall on their swords to do so. But it's hilarious to argue that he should be prosecuted because their own colleagues over in the newsroom had news judgment they didn't agree with.
There isn't necessarily a contradiction between arguing that Snowden should be prosecuted for his handling of the information and saying that nonetheless it was in the public interest to publish the information. You can argue that whistleblowers perform an important function, but that nonetheless the law is the law so they'll just have to fall on their swords to do so. But it's hilarious to argue that he should be prosecuted because their own colleagues over in the newsroom had news judgment they didn't agree with.
Everybody Panic
A major explosion in a major city or anywhere a lot of people gather would be a big deal (big cities aren't special, it's the potential density of people that make it easier to kill a lot of people with a bomb). What happened in NYC last night was not that. Right now it sounds like it was terrorism, but it wasn't very damaging terrorism.
Things blow up in Philly sometimes. Gas leak, transformer, etc. If they happen in a central location there's some concern, because central locations can have lots of people in them, but I've never thought, "small explosion 3/4 of a mile away! I'd better stay in my house!" An explosion "over there" doesn't mean the rest of the city is about to fall to North Korean invaders or whatever. I saw a couple conservative idiots on the twitter last night writing things like "New York is under attack!" Well, no, it really wasn't.
Things blow up in Philly sometimes. Gas leak, transformer, etc. If they happen in a central location there's some concern, because central locations can have lots of people in them, but I've never thought, "small explosion 3/4 of a mile away! I'd better stay in my house!" An explosion "over there" doesn't mean the rest of the city is about to fall to North Korean invaders or whatever. I saw a couple conservative idiots on the twitter last night writing things like "New York is under attack!" Well, no, it really wasn't.
The Ad Cycle
I thought it would've reset by now, but the internet just keeps getting worse and worse. Trying to read a website is like playing a game of whack-a-mole with the ads, and that's before we start complaining about the auto-on video and audio ads. Usually these things do follow a cycle, with the ad arms race heating up until everybody realizes it isn't sustainable and it resets a bit, but it seems like endless cover-the-text popover ads are here to stay this time. A mystery to everyone who has ever used the internet is why anybody (meaning the people who pay lots of money for these ads) think that they'll sell anything by rendering their potential customers' browsers temporarily unusable, but for some reason they do.
Anyway, no popover or auto-on audio ads here (I think some have slipped through occasionally, but they aren't supposed to). I turn down (meaning: I ignore) ad company pitches all the time because they generally promise some Exciting New Ad Unit which I interpret to mean even more creative ways to annoy you. Also, people who pitch anything through email on the internet seem to be uniquely bad at their jobs.
As always, if you want to support this site the best way to do it is to click on one of the Amazon links before you make purchases you were going to purchase anyway. Costs you nothing. I'll try to keep the ads below a certain nuisance threshold...
Anyway, no popover or auto-on audio ads here (I think some have slipped through occasionally, but they aren't supposed to). I turn down (meaning: I ignore) ad company pitches all the time because they generally promise some Exciting New Ad Unit which I interpret to mean even more creative ways to annoy you. Also, people who pitch anything through email on the internet seem to be uniquely bad at their jobs.
As always, if you want to support this site the best way to do it is to click on one of the Amazon links before you make purchases you were going to purchase anyway. Costs you nothing. I'll try to keep the ads below a certain nuisance threshold...
Morning Thread
There is absolutely nothing happening in the world outside of the latest outrageous statement made by one candidate and/or HIS surrogates. Nothing.
Sunday, September 18, 2016
Another Glorious Victory For Humanitarian Intervention
I try not to hold grudges generally, but there are people who are just off my list permanently over the whole "Libyan intervention" issue. People who I thought knew better - not eventheliberals, but actual liberals - got on their moral high horses and condescended to the hippies. Why don't you care about the Libyan people? Why don't you care about genocide? As was obvious at the time, and as should always be obvious, if we take a humanitarian interest in a country only when it involves dropping bombs on it, it probably isn't a genuine humanitarian interest. I'll (potentially) support bombing to help the people if ever even 5 days earlier anyone supporting the bombing was out there supporting other non-bombing humanitarian help. Yah David Cameron is a selfless dogooder. Hoocoodanode?
And, no, I don't mean everyone who thought Libya was a grand idea, I mean the people who were assholes about it. It was "fun" seeing rhetoric used on them during the whole Iraq debacle being deployed by them against hippies like me. Heckuva job, assholes, how come none of you talk about Libya now?
And, no, I don't mean everyone who thought Libya was a grand idea, I mean the people who were assholes about it. It was "fun" seeing rhetoric used on them during the whole Iraq debacle being deployed by them against hippies like me. Heckuva job, assholes, how come none of you talk about Libya now?
Choices
One common assertion over the past several decades is that the suburbs grew because the suburbs are popular and who are you to interfere with THE MARKET stupid hippie. I'm not one of those urbanists who denies that this is true to some extent. Some people would prefer basic suburban living even over an idealized urban existence. It is what some people want.
But that's only part of the story. The other part is the policies that haven't exactly made good urban living an option in most of the US, even for the people who would want it. Some of those policy choices are big and obvious, some less so.
But that's only part of the story. The other part is the policies that haven't exactly made good urban living an option in most of the US, even for the people who would want it. Some of those policy choices are big and obvious, some less so.
In other cities, the motorist might have noticed a pedestrian walking along a busy, high-speed street such as Georgetown Road because it likely would have been illuminated by the most basic of city services — a streetlight.
But not in Indianapolis.
Here, city officials stopped adding streetlights more than 35 years ago to save money on the city’s $2.9 million annual electric bill. Compounding the problem, they also failed to build any new sidewalks for 20 years during that time.
Saturday, September 17, 2016
The Wall
In generational all the fretting about "demographic time bombs" that I've been reading about for 30 years have just been one more piece of ammunition in the "we need to gut retirement benefits" movements, even if there was no logic to this. And nationally there is no logic to this. But locally, it can be a bit of a problem, especially given our federal system, if you have an ageing problem not being replaced by younger ones, especially if your crackpot governor isn't exactly lowering the drawbridge.
Friday, September 16, 2016
Only Spongebob Can Save Us Now
What's more likely, real self-driving cars in my lifetime or the American Dream actually opening?
A giant empty husk will serve as a great metaphor. Future archeologists will think it's a massive piece of art.
A giant empty husk will serve as a great metaphor. Future archeologists will think it's a massive piece of art.
Have You Not Been Paying Attention?
There's nothing wrong with Apple products until they quietly put out a fix for what wasn't really a problem unless the fix is too expensive in which case you are out of luck.
Also they make iTunes.
“The thing I’m really surprised at is that as much as Apple has worked on its brand image with customers, that it would allow this significant, widespread problem to be going on and not say a word.”
Also they make iTunes.
Is Voting For A Third Party Stupider Than Voting For Trump?
Contra Drum, the point of this wasn't that there's generational warfare and people are mean to the Kids which is nothing new so stop bringing it up and besides both sides do it, the point is that by the stated (implied at least) measure of judgment, The Kids Today are far superior to every other generation including the generation of the person making the comment. Do polls show The Kids Today will vote for Hillary Clinton? Yes. Damn kids today are voting for third parties and if Clinton loses it'll be all their fault!!!
I get that the olds always hate on the young. There is nothing new under the sun, as us old people are prone to say. But this kind of comment would be like saying "young people need to get more STEM degrees like my generation did!" after looking at data showing young people are actually getting record numbers/proportions of STEM degrees (made up example, also the STEM degree shortage has always been a myth so shut up about that too). It isn't just blasting the youngs for being youngs, it's blasting them for not living up to the arbitrary standards you set for them despite the fact that they actually lived up to them as is shown in the thing you just linked to.
In general in this election season there's been a lot of "the young people suck, why won't those idiots vote for us???" First, they will vote for you. Second, I'm not sure your campaign outreach is going to help that very much. But you'll be smug on the internet, which is almost as important as being right on the internet.
Nothing to See Here
Move along, folks.
A grim new study led by a UCLA geography professor revealed that the current 5-year drought in California could last indefinitely, with the resulting arid conditions becoming "the new normal" for the state.
Morning Thread
Echidne is back from vacation and she has something to say about the recent polls. Good and bad news.
Thursday, September 15, 2016
The Kids Today
About sums it up.
You kids really need to get your damned asses off of @MotherJones's lawn. pic.twitter.com/JpGnVof6Bq
— Billmon (@billmon1) September 15, 2016
@ClaraJeffery IN THE SAME POLL
— joftius (@joftius) September 15, 2016
Under 30: 48% HRC to 29% Trump
Clara's age group: 46% HRC to 48% Trump
Personal Responsibility
It's one of those things that frames any discussion of public policy in our glorious era of late capitalism. It comes up especially in discussions of retirement issues, but in plenty of other areas as well. Though it's randomly applied without any sort of consistency, expect of course to apply the concept extra hard to poorer people. I'm not especially sure why I should be responsible for making sure I have enough money saved up for retirement in order to not be homeless, but I'm not responsible for fixing the potholes (or hiring someone to fix the potholes) on my city street. The point is that there are some things that public collective action does well, or can do well, such as the provision of certain public services and goods and certain kinds of insurance. Having government do stuff doesn't remove my "personal responsibility" any more than having someone else manufacture my washing machine does. These are arbitrary distinctions. Except for defense contractors, no one is a complete government moocher in our society in any case. Pretty sure working most of my adult life and paying taxes as required shows a reasonable amount of personal responsibility. If the goal is to make sure most people of retirement age can be reasonably assured that they won't live a life of misery and poverty, and a program like Social Security is the best way to do that, then what the hell does personal responsibility have to do with it?
Pretty Simple Formula
They built a ballpark and didn't surround it with acres of parking lot. These things aren't that complicated. Get 20,000-40,000 people showing up to 80+ home games per year, easy enough to be a quick after work diversion, and you create a lot of foot traffic by people looking for something to do before/after the game.
Wednesday, September 14, 2016
Anecdote!
In 2008, Obummer was everywhere. Not the man himself, of course, but signs of his campaign. I'm talking about in my little corner of the world, which is representative of nowhere other than my little corner of the world. I don't notice the physical presence of the Clinton campaign here, though maybe it is just a little bit early still. I don't notice the Trump campaign, either, but that's to be expected.
I draw no conclusions from this observation. Clinton isn't going to lose PA.
I draw no conclusions from this observation. Clinton isn't going to lose PA.
But
Perhaps stop calling them self-driving then?
The technology is neat, but unless you get to 100% it just isn't more than neat, and it certainly won't do a damn thing for car services like Uber. Segways are neat, too.
Uber provided ride-alongs to reporters on Tuesday. During a ride of about one hour, Reuters observed the Uber car safely - and for the most part smoothly - stop at red lights and accelerate at green lights, travel over a bridge, move around a mail truck and slow for a driver opening a car door on a busy street. All without a person touching the controls.
But the Uber driver and the engineer in the front two seats did intervene every few miles.
The technology is neat, but unless you get to 100% it just isn't more than neat, and it certainly won't do a damn thing for car services like Uber. Segways are neat, too.
Show Up, Enroll, Drop Your Kid Off
Sometimes I wonder if the people who make policy in the country have ever dealt with the cable company. I'm not even picking on the cable company, just a useful symbol. Anything that helps people is progress, I guess, but people working two jobs and who might not have stable housing (I don't even mean potentially homeless, just people who move) shouldn't have to worry about income eligibility and form filling and record keeping and finding a new provider and jumping through all the steps again if they move blahblahblah for every single government program they interact with. Not everything can be simple, but pay skilled people to do the complex stuff so the rest of us don't have to worry about it.
The Kids Today joke about "adulting" - actually taking the time to take care of all of the random shit they need to take care of in the adult sphere instead of taking their brunch selfies. I suspect that "adulting" is more time consuming than it used to be, that the need to check all the boxes and return the forms and return those confirmation calls fills more hours of our day, and the consequences for failing to do so appropriately are greater still. I might be wrong about that. But any time there's some new government proposal that's privatized outsourced and means tested, it means that receiving the benefits of that program are going to require a big additional burden. And can someone other than me point out that income is a flow which changes over time. Past income is no guarantee of future income. People shouldn't have to constantly worry about moving in and out of eligibility. And if you do it through the tax system, eligibility for all "middle class" friendly stuff phases out at about the same income level, meaning people face a massive effective tax rate, and unless it's a refundable credit, doesn't help the poor a damn bit.
Keep it simple stupids.
The Kids Today joke about "adulting" - actually taking the time to take care of all of the random shit they need to take care of in the adult sphere instead of taking their brunch selfies. I suspect that "adulting" is more time consuming than it used to be, that the need to check all the boxes and return the forms and return those confirmation calls fills more hours of our day, and the consequences for failing to do so appropriately are greater still. I might be wrong about that. But any time there's some new government proposal that's privatized outsourced and means tested, it means that receiving the benefits of that program are going to require a big additional burden. And can someone other than me point out that income is a flow which changes over time. Past income is no guarantee of future income. People shouldn't have to constantly worry about moving in and out of eligibility. And if you do it through the tax system, eligibility for all "middle class" friendly stuff phases out at about the same income level, meaning people face a massive effective tax rate, and unless it's a refundable credit, doesn't help the poor a damn bit.
Keep it simple stupids.
tl;dr
Your assignment for the day.
If Donald Trump is elected president, will he and his family permanently sever all connections to the Trump Organization, a sprawling business empire that has spread a secretive financial web across the world? Or will Trump instead choose to be the most conflicted president in American history, one whose business interests will constantly jeopardize the security of the United States?
Did I Say The Worst?
Heckuva job.
Another one who just wanted to bomb and then have a parade. Why can't they all be lovely little wars?
David Cameron’s intervention in Libya was carried out with no proper intelligence analysis, drifted into an unannounced goal of regime change and shirked its moral responsibility to help reconstruct the country following the fall of Muammar Gaddafi, according to a scathing report by the foreign affairs select committee.
The failures led to the country becoming a failed a state on the verge of all-out civil war, the report adds.
The report, the product of a parliamentary equivalent of the Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq war, closely echoes the criticisms widely made of Tony Blair’s intervention in Iraq, and may yet come to be as damaging to Cameron’s foreign policy legacy.
It concurs with Barack Obama’s assessment that the intervention was “a shitshow”, and repeats the US president’s claim that France and Britain lost interest in Libya after Gaddafi was overthrown. The findings are also likely to be seized on by Donald Trump, who has tried to undermine Hillary Clinton’s foreign policy credentials by repeatedly condemning her handling of the Libyan intervention in 2011, when she was US secretary of state.
Another one who just wanted to bomb and then have a parade. Why can't they all be lovely little wars?
Tuesday, September 13, 2016
Hot Pursuit
Stop the high speed chases over nonviolent crimes (and the violent ones, too, usually). People die.
HAMILTON TWP., N.J. (WPVI) -- Authorities say a man fleeing police after a drug deal crashed his SUV into another vehicle, killing the other driver.
Through The Looking Glass
The olds among us remember when it was controversial that candidate Bill Clinton played sax on the Arsenio Hall show. The political world will be glued to their televisions when candidate Trump gives his fake medical records to quack "miracle cure" purveyor Dr. Oz on the teevee.
Jayuuuuuuubs
One of the enduring contradictions in our discourse is that politicians are always promising their policies will create jobs and their proposals judged to some extent on whether their policies would actually create them. At the same time any tick down in the unemployment rate starting at about 6.5% increases the number of Very Serious People who demand that the Fed raise rates in order to choke off the job growth before we get wage (oh noees!) and price increases (inflation). Policies that create jobs are good, actual job growth is bad.
Weird how that works.
Weird how that works.
Tuesday Crass Commercialism
Get your very own self-driving Lamborgini. Okay, it's not quite self-driving, but the driver isn't actually physically in the seat... close enough.
Tweedledee and Tweedledum
That the vapid twins have people that think their insights are, well, insightful does not surprise me. That none of their peers - who, in their own way, they represent - ever call them out on it does a bit, I admit.
As I said, my contempt for the politics coverage in this country had started to wane a bit. Not that I thought it had entered some new enlightened era, just that some of the worst of it seemed to have diminished. Then 2016 happened.
As I said, my contempt for the politics coverage in this country had started to wane a bit. Not that I thought it had entered some new enlightened era, just that some of the worst of it seemed to have diminished. Then 2016 happened.
Keep Your Eyes On The Road
Apparently Google screwed up by trying to make an autonomous car that was actually autonomous.
At least we'll have cruise control plus, which will be safe as long as you keep paying attention.
I've never understood the "oh, drivers will just take the wheel if ever they need to" concept. I guess that works if you're entering a parking garage or similar, but otherwise that driving thing operates at higher speeds. There isn't time.
I keep reading about how Singapore already has self-driving taxis. I guess?
The team knew what it would take to deliver a fully-autonomous system, known in the industry as L4, but some Google executives didn’t understand the complexity, according to one former member of the project. The person left to help run an active business with paying customers, something that’s missing from the car project. A Google spokesman declined to comment for this story.
Several years ago, some on the team wanted to push ahead with a service that didn’t require full automation, but Google co-founder Larry Page insisted on complete human driver replacement, another person said.
At least we'll have cruise control plus, which will be safe as long as you keep paying attention.
In 2012, Google let employees test a partially autonomous system for automated highway driving and discovered the attention of the human drivers quickly drifted, leaving them incapable of taking back control quickly and safely. That persuaded the company to pursue full autonomy, even if it took longer.
I've never understood the "oh, drivers will just take the wheel if ever they need to" concept. I guess that works if you're entering a parking garage or similar, but otherwise that driving thing operates at higher speeds. There isn't time.
I keep reading about how Singapore already has self-driving taxis. I guess?
For now, the taxis are only running in a 2.5-square-mile business and residential district called "one-north," and pick-ups and drop-offs are limited to specified locations. And riders must have an invitation from nuTonomy to use the service. The company says dozens have signed up for the launch, and it plans to expand that list to thousands of people within a few months.
The cars — modified Renault Zoe and Mitsubishi i-MiEV electrics — have a driver in front who is prepared to take back the wheel and a researcher in back who watches the car's computers. Each car is fitted with six sets of Lidar — a detection system that uses lasers to operate like radar — including one that constantly spins on the roof. There are also two cameras on the dashboard to scan for obstacles and detect changes in traffic lights.
He Knows Too Much
I can't remember specifics, but a few times over the years I've heard this "excuse" expressed by journalists about why their "objective" coverage was perhaps maybe not quite as objective. Basically, it's because they know things the mere mortals known as the public don't know, and that those things justify monstering a candidate over anything they can make stick because.
But of course it's bullshit. Those secret things they know would be reported if they were important and, you know, verifiable. I'm sure gossip is currency in our political press corps, and most of these "things" are stories traded at the bar. "Everybody" knows them, they just don't know if they are true, though they probably think they know it.
Leaving aside the fact that what's plainly obvious about Donald Trump is clearly worse than any secret gossip about Hillary's role in killing Vince Foster.
One could pick apart the whole thing - oh, yes, the Clintons are the only presidents to hang out with "Wealthy McWealthersons" - but basically it's the kind of thing which confirms every liberal fear about a vapid, preening, self-important, privileged, and ultimately very stupid political press (#notallmembersofthepoliticalpress).
But of course it's bullshit. Those secret things they know would be reported if they were important and, you know, verifiable. I'm sure gossip is currency in our political press corps, and most of these "things" are stories traded at the bar. "Everybody" knows them, they just don't know if they are true, though they probably think they know it.
Leaving aside the fact that what's plainly obvious about Donald Trump is clearly worse than any secret gossip about Hillary's role in killing Vince Foster.
One could pick apart the whole thing - oh, yes, the Clintons are the only presidents to hang out with "Wealthy McWealthersons" - but basically it's the kind of thing which confirms every liberal fear about a vapid, preening, self-important, privileged, and ultimately very stupid political press (#notallmembersofthepoliticalpress).
Morning Thread
Primary Day here. For statewide offices, whichever Dem wins the primary, wins the election.
Monday, September 12, 2016
Oh, Inqy
The article in question was about the first thing I read after I got up this morning. My first reaction was positive, as it's rare to read an actual positive story about urban public schools which, despite various problems with the system, aren't always post-apocalyptic nightmares. But then I kept reading and just kept thinking "Oh, Inqy, you really did this, didn't you..."
Grifters Gonna Grift
A lot of eventheliberals who used to be supportive of charter schools have just kinda gone silent on the subject. I wonder why.
Of course individual charter schools can be good and run well, but the system as a whole was designed for grifters.
Of course individual charter schools can be good and run well, but the system as a whole was designed for grifters.
The Worst Prime Minister
It is true that David Cameron was horrible. It's also true that this mostly will never make it into the political discourse in the UK (except a few attempts by people like Owen Jones). He didn't just fail by the standards of his political opposition (an opposition which often failed to oppose), but he failed to live up to his own promises, both sincere and insincere. He's not the only one to blame. Austerity madness gripped almost everyone in power in the UK, even many members of the prominent Left, but as the Republicans here always do, Cameron used it as an excuse to abuse the less than rich and enrich those with more than enough. In truth, there wasn't even austerity, just a gutting of the social compact and social cohesion in the country. He lit the match to burn the place down and then ran out the back door.
...and as I was typing this, slammed it shut.
...and as I was typing this, slammed it shut.
Amateur Campaign Consultant
It's a bit difficult in a role - blogging! - which is admittedly largely about being right on the internet to resist the temptations of merely trying to be right on the internet. I figure my epic 37 part series on What The Clinton Campaign Should Do To Win will change the world for the better or affect the Clinton campaign not at all. That ship has a full crew and will do their thing no matter what I write on this blog, and there's already enough unsolicited (and hopefully generally unheard) advice from elsewhere.
A presidential campaign is largely theater wrapped around a core of policies, explicit and implied. The theater matter, I'm just not sure that yet another theater critic does.
Of course, depriving myself of putting on my Very Serious Political Journalist hat and commenting on "the optics" while making definitive statements about voter reactions absent any polls to back me up is, I admit, limiting. Much easier to feel it at you. But I try not to.
A presidential campaign is largely theater wrapped around a core of policies, explicit and implied. The theater matter, I'm just not sure that yet another theater critic does.
Of course, depriving myself of putting on my Very Serious Political Journalist hat and commenting on "the optics" while making definitive statements about voter reactions absent any polls to back me up is, I admit, limiting. Much easier to feel it at you. But I try not to.
Why Do People Love The Idea Of Monorails?
Basically any online discussion of mass transit has people chiming in saying we should build monorails. I've never been able to figure out why. I get mass transit haters. I don't get the monorail fetishists. Is it just that they thought they were cool when they rode one at Disney when they were kids? Have they not ridden one of the numerous airport monorails and noticed some of their obvious shortcomings?
But leaving aside any rational discussion of whether monorails are a superior choice over other options, they just seem to capture the imagination somehow. Two rails bad, one rail good!
I don't get it.
But leaving aside any rational discussion of whether monorails are a superior choice over other options, they just seem to capture the imagination somehow. Two rails bad, one rail good!
I don't get it.
Sunday, September 11, 2016
Jeremy Corbyn Doesn't Have A Plan To Win The Election
However sitting naked in a hot tub in Trafalgar Square for the next 4 years would probably be superior to Owen Smith's cunning plan.
Joining the Euro is right at the intersection of "wrong" and "hideous unpopular". At least it's a plan to win the election and that Corbyn doesn't have one.
Owen Smith has said the UK could apply to rejoin the EU if Labour wins power under his leadership – even if it means signing up to the euro and fully open borders.
Joining the Euro is right at the intersection of "wrong" and "hideous unpopular". At least it's a plan to win the election and that Corbyn doesn't have one.
A Better Way To Elect A President?
I'd suggest arm wrestling, but I'm not sure how Clinton would deal with Donald's sad tiny little hands.
That 9/11 Feeling
For some it was the greatest day of their lives.
For some, the last.
Potato, potahto.
I wish today people, especially young people, could go back in time to feel the gravity of the day. It was astounding.
— Ari Fleischer (@AriFleischer) September 11, 2016
For some, the last.
Potato, potahto.
9/11 Day
It was horrible, then the country went mad. Not sure how one would explain it to The Kids Today except by propping their eyes open Clockwork Orange style, and forcing them to watch months of CNN from that time without interruption.
Or maybe Get Your War On.
Or maybe Get Your War On.
Saturday, September 10, 2016
Maybe Some Other Time
We are spared an iCar which will stop in the middle of the highway so you can verify your iCloud password despite having no network connection. The Genius mechanics would have told you, "That's how it's supposed to work!"
In a retrenchment of one of its most ambitious initiatives, Apple has shuttered parts of its self-driving car project and laid off dozens of employees, according to three people briefed on the move who were not allowed to speak about it publicly.
Give Me All Your Moneys
Trump is a small man with small hands. Sad! He only got a 6 foot painting of himself with $20,000 in charity money. Really sad! With your money I will have an even bigger picture of me! I only need $40,000 for a 12 foot painting! That would not be sad!
Friday, September 09, 2016
At The End of the Day
Can't wait until election day, or as I like to call it, the first day of Campaign 2020.
More Vaporware
In case you think I just pick on self-driving cars, this, too, will never happen.
Nothing against Maglev. It works. It's also one of those shiny "space age" sounding technologies that sound super neato to people with no understanding of mass transit. I frequently read comments like "why are we building 19th century technology like light rail? We should build maglev trains instead!" as if that would be appropriate technology for an 8 mile route with stops every 3/4 mile (it wouldn't).
But the cost of building maglev on this route isn't building maglev, it's assembling right of ways and building into city centers and creating station space at either end. And you can run regular SUPERTRAINS on non-supertrain track, allowing integrated systems, while maglev won't connect up with anything else.
Anyway, it'll never be built, just not sure what the game is.
BALTIMORE (AP) — The head of a private venture to build a high-speed magnetic-levitation train between Washington and Baltimore believes the project could break ground in as little as three to four years.
Nothing against Maglev. It works. It's also one of those shiny "space age" sounding technologies that sound super neato to people with no understanding of mass transit. I frequently read comments like "why are we building 19th century technology like light rail? We should build maglev trains instead!" as if that would be appropriate technology for an 8 mile route with stops every 3/4 mile (it wouldn't).
But the cost of building maglev on this route isn't building maglev, it's assembling right of ways and building into city centers and creating station space at either end. And you can run regular SUPERTRAINS on non-supertrain track, allowing integrated systems, while maglev won't connect up with anything else.
Anyway, it'll never be built, just not sure what the game is.
Let's Get Creative
We all know (and applaud) that the regime of President Kenyan Muslim Socialist Hussein Obama has been the most tyrannical in history. Still a President Clinton would probably manage to double or even triple that tyranny. I've seen surprisingly few specific suggestions about just what she will do. Any good ideas?
He Actually Deleted His Account
They usually don't.
A reminder of what those "controversial posts" were..."
Under fire for controversial online posts, the chair of Ursinus College's board of trustees has resigned, college president Brock Blomberg announced in an email to faculty and students Thursday evening.
A reminder of what those "controversial posts" were..."
"Got to love a janitor with a 'Ban Fracking Now' sticker on his bucket. Barack is clearly reaching his target demographic," said one of the tweets.
"Yoga pants? Per my DTW visual survey, only 10 percent of users should be wearing them. The rest need to be in sweats - or actually get dressed," said another.
A third, which was a retweet, referred to Caitlyn Jenner: "Bruce Jenner got 25 K for speaking engagements. Caitlyn gets $100K. What wage gap?"
Thursday, September 08, 2016
Whatever Happened to Crunchy Cons
Apparently the sin of failing to notice where you bread is buttered is the greatest sin of all.
Rock Star
I heard an NPR host refer to Pam Bondi as something like a "rising rock star in the conservative movement." Not knocking the host as it was followed by some critical coverage, but it occurred to me that this is a common way to refer to any conservative Republican that someone might have actually heard of, while liberals/Democrats basically never get labeled that way. I think I remember Obama being given some similar descriptions in 2004, but that's really it. At some point all 17 members of the clown car, even Jim Gilmore, were rock stars (I think I'm kidding on that last one. I think).
It's a silly label for politicians, and I'm happy to be without it, but it's part of the general tendency to talk up conservatives.
It doesn't always quite work out.
It's a silly label for politicians, and I'm happy to be without it, but it's part of the general tendency to talk up conservatives.
It doesn't always quite work out.
On Teevee
Millennials get a lot of crap for their selfie and sharing behavior, though my peer group isn't exactly millennials and I see pretty much the same behavior among them (or us). It isn't real until you've taken a picture of it and put it on social media. It's like it didn't even happen!
The older generation version of that is that it isn't real unless it's on TV. Of course not as many of us could ever actually be on TV given constraints, but the reality amplification of having your face on the box was similar.
This is Donald's world, as one can get from his comments and tweets. Reality is TV, he is real when he's on it. I never thought he wanted to be president, though of course he wants to win. He's a winner! But in a way he does. He wants to be on the teevee all the time. The Donald Show.
Reality bites.
The older generation version of that is that it isn't real unless it's on TV. Of course not as many of us could ever actually be on TV given constraints, but the reality amplification of having your face on the box was similar.
This is Donald's world, as one can get from his comments and tweets. Reality is TV, he is real when he's on it. I never thought he wanted to be president, though of course he wants to win. He's a winner! But in a way he does. He wants to be on the teevee all the time. The Donald Show.
Reality bites.
If Not, Then Say Something
My closing question last night was intended as a bit of an insult, obviously, but it was also just restating a point I've been trying to make since the "are bloggers journalists???" conversation of the early aughts. I don't actually care what the answer is. The point I always tried to make was that those who consider themselves to be journalists always latch on to some higher ideal of investigative reporting, or similar, even though very few people who call themselves - and are called by their peers - journalists do anything resembling that. Matt Lauer is a journalist because he gets paid 8 figures a year to do a job that enough people call "journalism." I'm not going to argue with that. Maybe his peers should, if they want people to think "journalism" is something other than what Matt Lauer does? Maybe instead of complaining about how members of the National Association of Black Journalists and National Association of Hispanic Journalists are big stupidheads, or worrying about The Bloogers, they should realize that to most people in the country, the pinnacle of journalism is, in fact, Matt Lauer. They gave him a really important job, after all! Don't want the face of your profession to be a morning show host, then say something. Though not too loudly, that 8 figure seat will be empty eventually...
And it's wrong to pick on Matt. Plenty of more "respectable journalists" have performed about as well in this type of thing. We all remember (hopefully not, actually, it's my job to remember these things) theChris WallaceCharlie Gibson/George Steph Democratic primary debate in 2008. Lauer would have fit in perfectly.
And it's wrong to pick on Matt. Plenty of more "respectable journalists" have performed about as well in this type of thing. We all remember (hopefully not, actually, it's my job to remember these things) the
Wednesday, September 07, 2016
How About That 2nd Season of The Wire
Kidding, but I'm pretty much behind on all the good tv shows (cue people saying they don't watch tv anymore as there hasn't been anything good on in 35 years). I don't get any of your stupid Game of Thrones jokes. I hail from a time when there were maybe 1-2 shows worth watching at any given moment and a couple more that qualified as "guilty pleasures" which were entertaining enough but not especially good. Now there are plenty which are good enough to watch on purpose and always a few that are even better than that, especially when increased availability for foreign TV shows is included in that calculation. Good shows aren't the limited resource anymore. Time is.
Trump's In Town
"Campaigning" at an elite center city club for rich (mostly) suburbanites.
Probably part of his outreach to black voters.
Probably part of his outreach to black voters.
The Christie Way
Forget it, it's New Jersey.
Would think this would be enough to sink it, but I don't know anything about this stuff.
The New Jersey Alliance for Fiscal Integrity, which describes itself as “consisting of taxpayers and business owners,” contends that the bond deal is “an illegal shell game” in an 11-page formal request to New Jersey Sports and Authority Chairman Michael Ferguson to delay any issuance of the bonds.
Would think this would be enough to sink it, but I don't know anything about this stuff.
The group also asserts that the board’s no-bid selection of the Wisconsin agency violates a two-decade-old executive order that requires that private bonds be sold through a competitive bidding process.
Maybe Don't Break The Law?
I'm actually a bit negative about red light cameras in general. Lights can be mistimed, so that yellow lights are too short, and sometimes the safer thing to do with a split second judgment call is actually to blow through the red light. All about the safety, not about the punishing people randomly, and I do think human judgment can, at times, have value in these situations for preventing accidents.
But man do people whine about red light cameras. Oh my god, they raise a lot of money! Maybe that suggests that a lot of people are, you know, driving illegally? And blowing through a red light or even just going a little bit over the line, assuming it's clearly marked, aren't harmless behaviors that The Man has made illegal just to harsh your mellow. Even if machine enforcement can be a bit flawed, it's probably less flawed than the lack of enforcement which has trained so many people to believe that it's their right to drive however the hell they want and write outraged newspaper columns about the ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLAR fines people get for likely engaging in extremely dangerous behavior with a two ton hunk of metal strapped to their bodies.
How about you just don't go? Jeebus.
But man do people whine about red light cameras. Oh my god, they raise a lot of money! Maybe that suggests that a lot of people are, you know, driving illegally? And blowing through a red light or even just going a little bit over the line, assuming it's clearly marked, aren't harmless behaviors that The Man has made illegal just to harsh your mellow. Even if machine enforcement can be a bit flawed, it's probably less flawed than the lack of enforcement which has trained so many people to believe that it's their right to drive however the hell they want and write outraged newspaper columns about the ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLAR fines people get for likely engaging in extremely dangerous behavior with a two ton hunk of metal strapped to their bodies.
Since 2007, red-light cameras have transformed dozens of ordinary street corners in the nation’s capital into moneymakers. Every time a motorist passes the “Don’t Go” sign, the city collects $150. With just 42 to 48 cameras in place, the city has made out like the grubby little top-hat guy from Monopoly, raking in nearly $86 million since fiscal 2007, AAA says. The District’s fine has bite, too, compared with $75 in Maryland and $50 in Virginia, AAA says.
How about you just don't go? Jeebus.
Tuesday, September 06, 2016
Grifts That Kill
I know nothing about the specific consequences of the Theranos grift, but bogus lab results can result in people dying because they don't get treatment they need or dying because they get treatment they don't need.
What a country!
What a country!
Press Conferences
It's a complete mystery why Hillary Clinton doesn't always find it important to give press conferences for the national political press corps.
Clearly:
Hillary Clinton took questions from reporters aboard her campaign plane Monday, but seemingly more interesting than what she said is what to call the session in which she said it. Was it a news conference or something else — perhaps merely a "gaggle" or an "avail"?
Clearly:
Kaine correctly noted that Clinton had taken questions after an address to the National Association of Black Journalists and National Association of Hispanic Journalists, but that is different from addressing the national press corps that knows her positions better than anyone, including other reporters, and is therefore better equipped to ask probing questions.
Their Sister Organization
I've long wondered why so many journalists treated Fox News like a news organization that followed the same rules that they liked to think they follow. It wasn't until the election of Obama that this facade cracked somewhat, but until then Fox really was given an equal seat at the table by many journalists. I don't know whether they really believed it or if they thought they had something to gain by keeping up the pretense. It could have been is as simple as liking the people they worked along side of, and rarely if ever actually watching the finish product.
And, no, I don't have problems with ideological news outlets. They're all ideological in result if not always conscious intention, though the difference really isn't that important. But Fox was something else.
Also, too, I don't believe the rest of the non-Fox journalists had never heard the stories of what was going on there...
And, no, I don't have problems with ideological news outlets. They're all ideological in result if not always conscious intention, though the difference really isn't that important. But Fox was something else.
Also, too, I don't believe the rest of the non-Fox journalists had never heard the stories of what was going on there...
Theranos
A story of pretty much all of the supposed elite gatekeepers - journalists, science, medical establishment, regulatory systems - not working at all.
Another lesson on how to succeed in America - perfect the grift.
Another lesson on how to succeed in America - perfect the grift.
That's Pretty Hard To Believe
Not the money, but the apology.
Now the company has agreed, on behalf of Ailes, to settle Carlson’s suit for a stunning $20 million, according to three people familiar with the settlement. To reinforce their seriousness about creating a new culture in a post-Ailes world, the company is expected to offer Carlson a public apology as part of the settlement. (The company, according to two people familiar with the discussions, has also reached settlement agreements with two other women.)
Michael Marcon, Delete Your Account
In case you were wondering why there's so much bullshit at universities these days, part of the reason is boards filled with people like this asserting control...
Morning Thread
As usual, Digby has it right. Anyone who goes to work for the Republican presidential campaign should demand to be paid up front.
Monday, September 05, 2016
Unions Are The Worst
One of the weirdest things, if one which doesn't get a lot of coverage, is how hostile even print newspapers have been towards organized labor over the years. The obvious reason it's weird is that newspaper journalism was pretty unionized. Any powerful institution can be flawed, and unions can be powerful locally even as they've lost much clout nationally, but generally it's a clear case of siding with the powerful over the increasingly powerless, and then running to the newspaper guild when management makes you cry.
It's Always 1994
Our pundit class is always behind on these types of things, but in 2016 an NFL player could begin a game by running to the center of the field and burning an American flag and most people wouldn't give a shit. Yes I'm exaggerating, somewhat, but even if people objected most people just wouldn't really care. Those who did care would find their feelings highly affected by the race of the player and the purpose of the protest. But, again, most people just wouldn't care. More important things to occupy our brain space.
Most of the people claiming to care about such things on your teevee don't care, either, they only "care" because they think they represent the America of their fantasies, or they "care" because it suits their politics to. They don't actually care in the sense of having an actual feeling about the topic.
Most of the people claiming to care about such things on your teevee don't care, either, they only "care" because they think they represent the America of their fantasies, or they "care" because it suits their politics to. They don't actually care in the sense of having an actual feeling about the topic.
Sunday, September 04, 2016
What Does He Know
They let anybody opine about this stuff now.
(ht lhochstein)
With autonomous cars, you see these videos from Google and Uber showing a car driving around, but people have not taken it past 80 percent. It’s one of those problems where it’s easy to get to the first 80 percent, but it’s incredibly difficult to solve the last 20 percent. If you have a good GPS, nicely marked roads like in California, and nice weather without snow or rain, it’s actually not that hard. But guess what? To solve the real problem, for you or me to buy a car that can drive autonomously from point A to point B—it’s not even close. There are fundamental problems that need to be solved.
(ht lhochstein)
Is Arnold President Yet?
For no particular reason I'm reminded of when Arnold became the Governator and Republicans along with much of the press were falling all over themselves to discuss making sure that he'd be eligible to be president one day.
My contempt for the national political press (#notallofthem) waned a bit for various reasons, but this election season is starting to bring it all back. Just what are they for again?
My contempt for the national political press (#notallofthem) waned a bit for various reasons, but this election season is starting to bring it all back. Just what are they for again?
A Depressing Read For A Sunday Morning
The US is a unique force for peace and progress, as long as it is led by people willing to drop freedom bombs.
Amazing how few paragraphs it takes to jump from peace to war, and the writer sees no contradiction in this. War is peace and all that.
Saturday, September 03, 2016
Damn Al Gore And His Weather Machine
I've said before that I tend to think (what do I know? I'm a blogger I can opine on anything!) that global climate change will more likely be expensive and disruptive rather than catastrophic, though I suppose we'd have to define these words precisely for them to mean much in this context, but the expensive disruption part is definitely here.
But They Jumped The Line
There's a line, and they cut in front, unlike my ancestors. It's only fair that we send them home, wherever that is.
The differences between these people and DREAMers is \_(ツ)_/. Lots of people were brought here as children by their parents (biological or adoptive) and were, for whatever reason, never able to become citizens. I'd bet the people in this article are generally more sympathetic cases to the population broadly, though I'm not sure why. If you grew up here and have never known anywhere else, it is your home. You don't have another one. There's no place for you to go back to, and likely no one you know waiting for you there. Of course, it isn't so different for people who came here as adults and have been here for awhile, either. Home is here.
The differences between these people and DREAMers is \_(ツ)_/. Lots of people were brought here as children by their parents (biological or adoptive) and were, for whatever reason, never able to become citizens. I'd bet the people in this article are generally more sympathetic cases to the population broadly, though I'm not sure why. If you grew up here and have never known anywhere else, it is your home. You don't have another one. There's no place for you to go back to, and likely no one you know waiting for you there. Of course, it isn't so different for people who came here as adults and have been here for awhile, either. Home is here.
The Worst People in the World
There is some stiff competition, but the clear winner of the Worst University Administration Ever Award has to go to the dangerous cretins who run Long Island University, Brooklyn.
That link up there goes to the Long Island paper Newsday's website, and is behind a paywall. The LIU Faculty Federation explains this mess succinctly:
The reason this is so unusual, which is a nice way of saying "so goddamn crazy," is that most institutions of higher education are aware that it is impossible to function as an institution of higher education if you don't actually have a faculty.
LIU administration is telling all of their students that their tuition money entitles them to be taught by hastily hired replacements.
Thus, on the one hand, any LIU student who demands an immediate tuition refund is absolutely correct. On the other hand, the can of worms LIU has just opened up as regards federal regulations regarding financial aid is a very big can full of very big worms. On the third hand, LIU has essentially told its regional accrediting body, Middle States, to piss up a rope.
If the LIU administration had decided instead to simply set fire to its Brooklyn campus, that would have been a more comprehensible course of action.
Disclosure, a good friend of mine teaches at LIU. But I can honestly say that this is the most utter and disgusting garbage thrown at college and university faculty that I can recall. For more on this trainwreck, follow LIU's Emily Drabinsky, and the LIU Faculty Federation site.
This cannot stand.
That link up there goes to the Long Island paper Newsday's website, and is behind a paywall. The LIU Faculty Federation explains this mess succinctly:
Long Island University informed the LIU Faculty Federation (LIUFF) that it plans to lock out faculty at midnight on Friday, September 2, on the eve of a no confidence vote in President Kimberly L Cline. The faculty contract expired on August 31. Picketing to protest the lockout and use of replacement workers will take place on Flatbush and DeKalb Avenues at 10 a.m., Wednesday, September 7, the first day of classes. The LIU Faculty Federation/NYSUT/AFT represents fulltime and adjunct faculty.I've never heard of a lockout of university faculty before, especially one announced the week before classes start.
The lockout is the culmination of a series of actions taken by the administration over the summer that include advertising for replacement workers, unilaterally canceling classes, and uploading erroneous materials to course management websites.
The reason this is so unusual, which is a nice way of saying "so goddamn crazy," is that most institutions of higher education are aware that it is impossible to function as an institution of higher education if you don't actually have a faculty.
LIU administration is telling all of their students that their tuition money entitles them to be taught by hastily hired replacements.
Thus, on the one hand, any LIU student who demands an immediate tuition refund is absolutely correct. On the other hand, the can of worms LIU has just opened up as regards federal regulations regarding financial aid is a very big can full of very big worms. On the third hand, LIU has essentially told its regional accrediting body, Middle States, to piss up a rope.
If the LIU administration had decided instead to simply set fire to its Brooklyn campus, that would have been a more comprehensible course of action.
Disclosure, a good friend of mine teaches at LIU. But I can honestly say that this is the most utter and disgusting garbage thrown at college and university faculty that I can recall. For more on this trainwreck, follow LIU's Emily Drabinsky, and the LIU Faculty Federation site.
This cannot stand.
Friday, September 02, 2016
No Matter Where You Go, There They Are
There's just so little stranger danger of this type these days. Few people, aside from some in custody disputes, are really interested in kidnapping children. In a country of 325+ million there are going to be stories of bad things happening, but people always "follow" me around the supermarket, too, because if you enter at about the same time as other people you're probably going to be following roughly the same route through the market...
The Clinton Rules
I'm open to the idea that there are some problems with the relationship between the Clinton Foundation and Hillary Clinton's role as Secretary of State. Some of it's a bit unseemly in that way that the sausage factory is a bit gross, but it basically seems to fall in "this is how things work" territory as far as I can tell. Meaning, standard practices that for some reason are scandalous when they involve the Clintons. Anyway, litigating all of that is too much for this blog post to get into, but the press is desperate to come up with scandals that involve some sort of abuse of power at State in relation to the Foundation, so much so that things are scandalous even when the attempt to find a scandal, which would barely be a scandal anyway, finds nothing.
This one has the added bonus of an entirely new genre: journalists unhappy with attempts to free journalists who have been taken prisoner. When journalists in such situations are people friendly with the national press corps, they're generally ready to advocate nuclear war to free them.
This one has the added bonus of an entirely new genre: journalists unhappy with attempts to free journalists who have been taken prisoner. When journalists in such situations are people friendly with the national press corps, they're generally ready to advocate nuclear war to free them.
No More Public Spaces
When I was a kid (teen) we sometimes hung out at the mall because there was nowhere else to go. Increasingly it isn't even an option for The Kids Today. Well let's mock them for not doing anything but playing videogames and texting on their phones, because they have so many other welcoming places to be social.
Thursday, September 01, 2016
Everybody's Gotta Eat I Guess
The eventheliberal career path has long been lucrative.
Old news, but somehow I'd missed that...
In what seemed timed as a preemptive strike, two of Ailes’s attorneys—Susan Estrich, a law professor and a partner in the blue-chip Los Angeles law firm Quinn, Emanuel, and Mark Mukasey, a top litigator in the well-connected New York firm Greenberg, Traurig—contacted The Daily Beast in the past day to attack the journalist in slashing, nasty, and deeply personal terms.
Old news, but somehow I'd missed that...
Always Five Years Away
As I wrote before, if they don't work 100% then it's not clear what good they are. Again, I don't mean safety. Safety's the easy part. If they work as promised, they'll be safe enough.
But, hey, let's shut down all the mass transit systems tomorrow. Because the self-driving cars will be here! Tommorrow, tomorrow...
BMW, Ford, and Uber have all recently said they plan to have “fully autonomous” cars ready to drive themselves on the road in 2021 (see “2021 May Be the Year of the Fully Autonomous Car”). Ford says its fleet of vehicles will lack steering wheels and offer a robotic taxi service.
But don’t expect to toss out your driver's license in 2021. Five years isn’t long enough to create vehicles good enough at driving to roam extensively without human input, say researchers working on autonomous cars. They predict that Ford and others will meet their targets by creating small fleets of vehicles limited to small, controlled areas.
“Probably what Ford would do to meet their 2021 milestone is have something that provides low-speed taxi service limited to certain roads—and don’t expect it to come in the rain,” says Steven Shladover of the University of California, Berkeley, who has worked on automated driving for more than 20 years.
Shladover says many media outlets and members of the public are overinterpreting statements from Ford and other companies that are less specific than they appear. The dream of being able to have a car drive you wherever you want to go in the city, country, or continent remains distant, he says. “It ain’t going to be five years,” says Shladover. “The hype has gotten totally out of sync with reality.”
But, hey, let's shut down all the mass transit systems tomorrow. Because the self-driving cars will be here! Tommorrow, tomorrow...
We Would've Won This Election If Not For Those Meddling Kids
I know this is mostly online only bullshit, but one of the narratives out there is how The Kids Today, who fell under the spell of that evil Warlock Bernie Sanders, are all going to vote for Jill Stein and throw the election to Trump because no one can do any math.
Anyway, a higher percentage The Kids Today are going to vote for Hillary Clinton than any other age group, even if a few of them aren't as wise as their elders. Oh, wait, those elders who are going to be voting for Republicans. My generation was born Republican. The generation before mine became Republican. It ain't The Kids Today who are responsible for Trump being where he is. The Kids Today are actually left-leaning Democrats. Yes they're all irresponsible slackers who don't show up for midterms, but at least they don't show up and vote for Republicans like every other generation.
Anyway, a higher percentage The Kids Today are going to vote for Hillary Clinton than any other age group, even if a few of them aren't as wise as their elders. Oh, wait, those elders who are going to be voting for Republicans. My generation was born Republican. The generation before mine became Republican. It ain't The Kids Today who are responsible for Trump being where he is. The Kids Today are actually left-leaning Democrats. Yes they're all irresponsible slackers who don't show up for midterms, but at least they don't show up and vote for Republicans like every other generation.
A Kindler, Gentler Donald
That was basically the NYT writeup of his speech last night, posted on the site, before it got a few edits. It really was "This is how we, the press corps, expect Donald to act. Here is the script we keep writing for him. Pivot! Soccer Moms! Softer! Presidential! Won't murder quite all the immigrants!" reality be damned.
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