I'm just a little confused regarding these supposed billion dollar infusions into high speed rail...confused because on the one hand we'll be promoting an extremely efficient mode of transportation while abandoning local transit rail services on the other.
From a SACTOWN bee article yesterday, SF Muni and BART have recently shed jobs due to the combination of decreased state funding and loss of fares from riders who aren't commuting to their non-existent jobs. Sacramento RT will undergo massive cuts and fare increases. High speeed rail is a huge political score for creating hundreds of thousands of jobs while this job creation will simply offset the loss of thousands of transit workers across the U.S.
I shall repeat for all those who decry transit as a shamefully wasteful publicly subsidized ride from A to B: so is your fucking car, slick. Even more so.
If not for federal matching funds California wouldn't build one additional freeway. Interestingly, we all like to call road building "infrastructure investment," while monies funding a bus route is a "transit subsidy." Because California car owners don't directly pay the full price for roads, traffic accidents, pollution abatement, IHS improvements, auxiliary lane building, traffic signals, the new Bay Bridge, the CHP, red light cameras and free towing during rush hour, of course they choose to drive as much as possible. And they do.
I asked a white co-worker of mine who recently moved from Elk Grove to Folsom if she now takes light rail to work. "No, I prefer the convenience of my car, and besides, I wouldn't ride it in any event." Read: her car is a prosthetic device; it's within 100 yards of her physical presence at all times. More revealing, she would never associate with the commoners...the filth, the dregs, those without personal transportation means, and those who don't look like her. Of course, she would never say that to me directly. She would never say that to anyone else, either, but it was crystal clear: she lives comfortably within her private realm while covertly engaging in economic and social racism. She likely votes down transit "subsidies." She'd pay good money to hire a black mechanic to fix her car yet would refuse to sit next to him on a bus. Her daughter isn't disabled and she'll be driving her own car soon enough.
I am making all sorts of assumptions regarding her behavior. But these are the decisions we make all the time and in the aggregate, it continues to marginalize transit. We refuse to fund it, we refuse to ride it, we tell riders to "get your own damn car, I'm tired of paying for your ride," yet high speed rail's gonna be one of the most subsidized forms of transportation there is and I ain't heard that word used even once; it's called a "federal grant," or "investment," or "recovery money," or an "economy stimulus." Whatever we call it, it's still a goddamn subsidy! And only eight billion to boot -- what, GM alone got what, $16.6 billion?
My guess: we are collectively willing to fund high speed rail because it'll come with a high priced ticket -- sufficient to keep away people who don't look like us. Let them take the bus from A to B; I'll be taking the bullet train from B to A.
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Judge's Handshake, Justice Betrayed
I think I'll take a different tack regarding the supreme court decision reversing the 60-year ban on corporations giving money directly to political candidates. I'll see this as a good thing.
For most of our history corporations have been considered persons, so now these people gained the right to free speech and can contribute directly. This is fine with me, because perhaps now we'll get to see directly who contributes what, who exactly owns our system. Today we have political action committees and research foundations that do the same damn thing, so these liberal fears of corporatist fascism in America are overblown. It won't change what is already in play in American governance.
One of a hundred thousand examples is the old Global Climate Coalition. By this name you'd be assured this was a group of concerned individuals, activists and businesses working to develop climate solutions, when indeed it was funded by Ford, Exxon, Texaco, and others who opposed all greenhouse gas legislation. This is fine, you can oppose it, yes, but perhaps now these corporations will directly contribute and openly disclose their influence our legislators.
I've an idea. Instead of our politicians wearing pricey Kiton suits, how about beautiful custom tailored Kasey Kahnejackets suits,
with fine embroidered corporate logos who's size indicates the relative contributions/influences they receive. At least it would be out in the open. We might as well make this as clear as possible -- the latest court decision did that very well, and wearing KK Menswear would enhance that decision nicely.
For most of our history corporations have been considered persons, so now these people gained the right to free speech and can contribute directly. This is fine with me, because perhaps now we'll get to see directly who contributes what, who exactly owns our system. Today we have political action committees and research foundations that do the same damn thing, so these liberal fears of corporatist fascism in America are overblown. It won't change what is already in play in American governance.
One of a hundred thousand examples is the old Global Climate Coalition. By this name you'd be assured this was a group of concerned individuals, activists and businesses working to develop climate solutions, when indeed it was funded by Ford, Exxon, Texaco, and others who opposed all greenhouse gas legislation. This is fine, you can oppose it, yes, but perhaps now these corporations will directly contribute and openly disclose their influence our legislators.
I've an idea. Instead of our politicians wearing pricey Kiton suits, how about beautiful custom tailored Kasey Kahne
with fine embroidered corporate logos who's size indicates the relative contributions/influences they receive. At least it would be out in the open. We might as well make this as clear as possible -- the latest court decision did that very well, and wearing KK Menswear would enhance that decision nicely.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Just Popped Out
Google image "French Cafe," and this painting comes up, offered for $425:
Now let me tell you, I see these types of pictures in American homes all the time. It's highly possible you have a picture of some European cafe or other such social setting somewhere in your house...the hallway...the guest bedroom...maybe the living room. I've got one between the kitchen and downstairs.
Every time I go into a house with these sorts of pictures I like to query the inhabitants about them. Isn't it odd that we've got pictures of foreign urban settings in our housal units that presumably we'd like to have in our own neighborhoods, yet instead we build shit like this:
Yep, a nice blown-on Styrofoam stucco exterior with ample room for your parked car. An All-American Cafe.
A few of my neighbors are smitten with Hawai'i. Large framed prints of beaches and hula kahiko. Of course not everyone can live by the beach, so we hang pictures of places we admire. Yet, we don't ever stop to consider how ridiculous it is to put up a photo of an urban environment when all we had to do was build these urban environments around us in the first place. It's not like we can go out and build a beach here in Elk Grove, but we certainly could have built a city worth a shit.
Tell me something. Do you think that if I went to any random house in Belgium or Portugal I'd find a picture like this All-American Cafe? Think this picture hangs in the parlor of some house in Mont de Marsan?
Perhaps a visiting Austrian from Graz hangs her photo of the SPAM museum when she was out visiting relatives in Minnesota:
Or hangs photos of her relatives front yard...you know, the family that loves to put those cute plywood cutouts of Santa at Christmastime, or the little boy peeing in the bushes. This one better sums up my America:
These are the products of a culture that doesn't give a damn about the dignity of place. These are the trappings of a throwaway society, one that fails to concern itself with the value of public settings such as a walkable street, with buildings that connect to one another, with buildings built of durable materials, built to last. This is why we have to hang pictures of places elsewhere. It's as if we know better but we just don't know better.
Now let me tell you, I see these types of pictures in American homes all the time. It's highly possible you have a picture of some European cafe or other such social setting somewhere in your house...the hallway...the guest bedroom...maybe the living room. I've got one between the kitchen and downstairs.
Every time I go into a house with these sorts of pictures I like to query the inhabitants about them. Isn't it odd that we've got pictures of foreign urban settings in our housal units that presumably we'd like to have in our own neighborhoods, yet instead we build shit like this:
Yep, a nice blown-on Styrofoam stucco exterior with ample room for your parked car. An All-American Cafe.
A few of my neighbors are smitten with Hawai'i. Large framed prints of beaches and hula kahiko. Of course not everyone can live by the beach, so we hang pictures of places we admire. Yet, we don't ever stop to consider how ridiculous it is to put up a photo of an urban environment when all we had to do was build these urban environments around us in the first place. It's not like we can go out and build a beach here in Elk Grove, but we certainly could have built a city worth a shit.
Tell me something. Do you think that if I went to any random house in Belgium or Portugal I'd find a picture like this All-American Cafe? Think this picture hangs in the parlor of some house in Mont de Marsan?
Perhaps a visiting Austrian from Graz hangs her photo of the SPAM museum when she was out visiting relatives in Minnesota:
Or hangs photos of her relatives front yard...you know, the family that loves to put those cute plywood cutouts of Santa at Christmastime, or the little boy peeing in the bushes. This one better sums up my America:
These are the products of a culture that doesn't give a damn about the dignity of place. These are the trappings of a throwaway society, one that fails to concern itself with the value of public settings such as a walkable street, with buildings that connect to one another, with buildings built of durable materials, built to last. This is why we have to hang pictures of places elsewhere. It's as if we know better but we just don't know better.
Just Republican Enough
While carpooling into work this morning, I noticed a car on the freeway with an Obama bumper sticker. No big deal, we see these all the time. Yet this car had another sticker: "Too poor to vote Republican." No big deal, these aren't very common, but hey, we see them out there from time to time.
Oh man! You should have seen the clouds of blue smoke coming from its tailpipe...and on closer inspection it had expired tags, over three months due. Too poor to pay your bills, but not too poor to drive solo, huh slick? The car likely can't pass smog, with the blue smoke indicative of burning oil.
Their third bumper sticker should read: " Just Republican enough to damn the environment."
Oh man! You should have seen the clouds of blue smoke coming from its tailpipe...and on closer inspection it had expired tags, over three months due. Too poor to pay your bills, but not too poor to drive solo, huh slick? The car likely can't pass smog, with the blue smoke indicative of burning oil.
Their third bumper sticker should read: " Just Republican enough to damn the environment."
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Greenwashing
Last night, not unlike any other night, an advertisement came on TV for how driving a particular brand of car would "save the world." The message is, succinctly, that if everyone just went out and bought "our brand of green" car, our environment would be saved, the climate wouldn't change, and we'd be independent from foreign oil.
These advertisements are only perpetuating the myth that we can become energy independent while remaining car dependent. In my opinion, this is a myth, and like the Easter Bunny, Santa Clause (sic), and Jesus, we like to believe in myths because they make us feel better about the realities we live in. But children get cavities from Easter candy. The second coming hasn't come. And the U.S. will never become energy independent from foreign oil. No matter how much we might wish, these are our realities.
Perpetuating the myth that we can continue our energy intensive lifestyles with low density resources is dangerous. I will stop short on the whole Jesus/Santa Claus thing -- my monologues are about energy and about how the way we are socially organized impacts that use. Yet myths are myths. The idea that if only we drove Priori we'd save the world is really nearsighted. It fails to recognize the idea that renewable energy is truly scarce and isn't concentrated. Renewable energy, so far, does not come to us packaged neatly inside a beer can or briefcase. It comes through acres of wind farms and solar panels and reservoirs, is difficult to store, and when stored it doesn't come with the same intensity as non-renewables. And most critically, the notion that renewables includes turkey gut and dairy digesters, corn ethanol plants, landfill methane plants and algae diesel fails to see these in the context that an oil/natural gas platform is required to sustain these. It also comes at a much greater cost. The idea that we can/will continue to run low density suburban sprawl on batteries powered by wind isn't an idea at all, it's a wish. Renewables, as currently understood, will not support such energy intensive endeavors as living 28 miles from work and getting our food 1,400 miles away on a normalized basis.
Elk Grove is the poster child of an unsustainable energy intensive living arrangement. It has no indigenous energy resources, no jobs, and no agriculture to speak of now that we paved over all arable land. That its population might drive 109,000 Priori in lieu of SUVs and by doing so is considered "green" is ludicrous. Remember -- the implementation of energy efficiency practices has only ever led to increased energy consumption, not less. What Elk Grovians and the rest of the U.S. must consider doing is consuming less energy overall if they truly intend on calling themselves green.
But that would require socially unacceptable social changes. And we won't. I accept this, and I'm smart enough to realize that while I might make a personal choice to consume less, I know that it only allows everyone else the opportunity to consume more. This is the way it's going to be, with or without all the greenwashing we do. In that context I consume less only to reduce my exposure based on my future belief that energy will become more expensive.
SMUD actively promotes greenwashing, too, with the not so subtle message that if you consume electricity between 4:00 and 7:00 you're little girl will live in an uninhabitable world:
Come on -- while SMUD will have to build capacity to deliver peak power, thereby increasing costs, the bottom line is that if we don't reduce overall consumption this is all really pointless. Shifting demand does not do that.
These advertisements are only perpetuating the myth that we can become energy independent while remaining car dependent. In my opinion, this is a myth, and like the Easter Bunny, Santa Clause (sic), and Jesus, we like to believe in myths because they make us feel better about the realities we live in. But children get cavities from Easter candy. The second coming hasn't come. And the U.S. will never become energy independent from foreign oil. No matter how much we might wish, these are our realities.
Perpetuating the myth that we can continue our energy intensive lifestyles with low density resources is dangerous. I will stop short on the whole Jesus/Santa Claus thing -- my monologues are about energy and about how the way we are socially organized impacts that use. Yet myths are myths. The idea that if only we drove Priori we'd save the world is really nearsighted. It fails to recognize the idea that renewable energy is truly scarce and isn't concentrated. Renewable energy, so far, does not come to us packaged neatly inside a beer can or briefcase. It comes through acres of wind farms and solar panels and reservoirs, is difficult to store, and when stored it doesn't come with the same intensity as non-renewables. And most critically, the notion that renewables includes turkey gut and dairy digesters, corn ethanol plants, landfill methane plants and algae diesel fails to see these in the context that an oil/natural gas platform is required to sustain these. It also comes at a much greater cost. The idea that we can/will continue to run low density suburban sprawl on batteries powered by wind isn't an idea at all, it's a wish. Renewables, as currently understood, will not support such energy intensive endeavors as living 28 miles from work and getting our food 1,400 miles away on a normalized basis.
Elk Grove is the poster child of an unsustainable energy intensive living arrangement. It has no indigenous energy resources, no jobs, and no agriculture to speak of now that we paved over all arable land. That its population might drive 109,000 Priori in lieu of SUVs and by doing so is considered "green" is ludicrous. Remember -- the implementation of energy efficiency practices has only ever led to increased energy consumption, not less. What Elk Grovians and the rest of the U.S. must consider doing is consuming less energy overall if they truly intend on calling themselves green.
But that would require socially unacceptable social changes. And we won't. I accept this, and I'm smart enough to realize that while I might make a personal choice to consume less, I know that it only allows everyone else the opportunity to consume more. This is the way it's going to be, with or without all the greenwashing we do. In that context I consume less only to reduce my exposure based on my future belief that energy will become more expensive.
SMUD actively promotes greenwashing, too, with the not so subtle message that if you consume electricity between 4:00 and 7:00 you're little girl will live in an uninhabitable world:
Come on -- while SMUD will have to build capacity to deliver peak power, thereby increasing costs, the bottom line is that if we don't reduce overall consumption this is all really pointless. Shifting demand does not do that.
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Friends Of Madeira
I will be highly entertained over the next few months, perhaps years, watching a local group of housal unit owners fight the proposal to add a second WalMart here in our little Elk Grovian burg.
The Friends of Madeira (FoM) has sued the city. The store location was originally studied and approved in 2008 for a 150,000 sq ft Target, but the corporation sold off the land to WalMart who wants to build a 100,000 sq ft SuperCenter. FoM claims [as I understand it] that the the original review process would have been different for a big box store selling more than 10% perishables (read: groceries), and as such, the original review is insufficient. That is, the city must perform another one, and one that addresses the notional issues of urban decay, air pollution, and traffic that a grocery/retail store would bring.
"Refrigerated trucks entering and exiting a residential area? Unspeakable."
I personally find this a bogus argument. First off, Bruceville and Poppy Ridge roads are [or will soon become] 5-lane traffic sewers used to move most Maderia residents to and from their housal units to their jobs 15-30 miles away. The argument that a few dozen refrigerated trucks plying these collector roads will somehow create a traffic nightmare is bullshit...it's already brutalized by these consumer-commuters. Elk Grove is flat and jake brakes are already banned in the city limits.
The argument of parking lot lights shining into bedrooms: wouldn't a Target parking lot have done the same thing?
Then, this gem from FoM attorney Brett Jolley: "typically when you combine grocery with retail...there is a tendency to close other stores in the area." Well, when Madeira consumers clamor for mass volumes of cheaply produced foreign consumables and they can only get that through the economies of big box scale, what the fuck do you think happens to local retailers?
I believe this is nothing more than a group of housal unit owners who are concerned, rightfully so, that the introduction of a WalMart will reduce housal unit values, will introduce rampant minority crime, offer clouds of particulate diesel smoke for their young'ens and old'ens, offer fourteen hours of mercury vapor lamp lighting into their bedrooms, and traffic so bad you'd sooner slit your wrists than drive down Poppy Ridge Rd. But I believe their arguments are facetious.
Personally, I think they are more afraid of the People of WalMart -- people that don't look like them. Problem is, I could never prove my assertion and people can't sue on that basis in America...so we take other approaches to prosecute economic racism/segregation like arguing that refrigerated trucks belong nowhere near residential housal units. Therefore, it's argued, the corner (already single use zoned for commercial activity) is unsuitable for a WalMart and should be located elsewhere.
This one issue sums up perfectly many of the tenants I raise on my monologues -- the failures of single use zoning to provide for meaningful places to live, work and socialize (which, in this case, FoM argues that they shouldn't even be zoned adjacent to one another), locally undesirable land uses, the destruction of local economies and jobs while throwing parades for the grand opening of new big box stores, economic segregation, collector road sewers, and the spectacular failure of Elk Grovian suburbia to provide jobs sufficient to buy even the median Elk Grovian housal unit.
FoM will likely, and in my opinion, ought to, lose their fight. Communities across the U.S. fight these every day with the end result being more separation between land uses while these same communities' desires for cheap imported shit only serves to bolster the introduction of said stores. Valid relationships between commerce, industry and residential are only further destroyed through these actions yet we continue to march march! towards living in cities without worth.
The Friends of Madeira (FoM) has sued the city. The store location was originally studied and approved in 2008 for a 150,000 sq ft Target, but the corporation sold off the land to WalMart who wants to build a 100,000 sq ft SuperCenter. FoM claims [as I understand it] that the the original review process would have been different for a big box store selling more than 10% perishables (read: groceries), and as such, the original review is insufficient. That is, the city must perform another one, and one that addresses the notional issues of urban decay, air pollution, and traffic that a grocery/retail store would bring.
"Refrigerated trucks entering and exiting a residential area? Unspeakable."
I personally find this a bogus argument. First off, Bruceville and Poppy Ridge roads are [or will soon become] 5-lane traffic sewers used to move most Maderia residents to and from their housal units to their jobs 15-30 miles away. The argument that a few dozen refrigerated trucks plying these collector roads will somehow create a traffic nightmare is bullshit...it's already brutalized by these consumer-commuters. Elk Grove is flat and jake brakes are already banned in the city limits.
The argument of parking lot lights shining into bedrooms: wouldn't a Target parking lot have done the same thing?
Then, this gem from FoM attorney Brett Jolley: "typically when you combine grocery with retail...there is a tendency to close other stores in the area." Well, when Madeira consumers clamor for mass volumes of cheaply produced foreign consumables and they can only get that through the economies of big box scale, what the fuck do you think happens to local retailers?
I believe this is nothing more than a group of housal unit owners who are concerned, rightfully so, that the introduction of a WalMart will reduce housal unit values, will introduce rampant minority crime, offer clouds of particulate diesel smoke for their young'ens and old'ens, offer fourteen hours of mercury vapor lamp lighting into their bedrooms, and traffic so bad you'd sooner slit your wrists than drive down Poppy Ridge Rd. But I believe their arguments are facetious.
Personally, I think they are more afraid of the People of WalMart -- people that don't look like them. Problem is, I could never prove my assertion and people can't sue on that basis in America...so we take other approaches to prosecute economic racism/segregation like arguing that refrigerated trucks belong nowhere near residential housal units. Therefore, it's argued, the corner (already single use zoned for commercial activity) is unsuitable for a WalMart and should be located elsewhere.
This one issue sums up perfectly many of the tenants I raise on my monologues -- the failures of single use zoning to provide for meaningful places to live, work and socialize (which, in this case, FoM argues that they shouldn't even be zoned adjacent to one another), locally undesirable land uses, the destruction of local economies and jobs while throwing parades for the grand opening of new big box stores, economic segregation, collector road sewers, and the spectacular failure of Elk Grovian suburbia to provide jobs sufficient to buy even the median Elk Grovian housal unit.
FoM will likely, and in my opinion, ought to, lose their fight. Communities across the U.S. fight these every day with the end result being more separation between land uses while these same communities' desires for cheap imported shit only serves to bolster the introduction of said stores. Valid relationships between commerce, industry and residential are only further destroyed through these actions yet we continue to march march! towards living in cities without worth.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Forty Thousand
I suppose I'm fascinated by airport security because it garners a totally disproportionate volume of our national resources for the benefit it provides.
Following any given shoe bomber, underwear bomber, prosthetic leg bomber, or wheelchair bomber we go on red alert. Red Alert! This is acceptable, yes...to a degree. The thing is, we give so much attention, time and money to downed airliners, to determining cause, to providing for security, but for what? Several dozen lives annually?
We accept the madness of airport security and we will accept even more madness going forward, yet the very same people willing to get strip searched and probed in the nether area are the ones routinely voting down any measures to slow traffic, to allow the installation of more red-light cameras, to building correct roads, to provide for stricter cell phone laws -- the things that would cost much, much less to implement yet would save thousands more lives than a coupla crashed airplanes.
We accept airport security to preserve our way of life, the way of life supposedly threatened by airline terrorists. We accept the curtailment of these civil liberties yet can't put on a fucking seat belt in a car or a helmet while on a motorcycle.
More than 320,000 people have died on roads since 9/11. This is apparently an acceptable trade off against the, say, 732 that might have died at the hands of terrorists had we not done a damn thing different since. How many lives might have been saved had we not pulled traffic officers off the streets and into counterterrorism.
Nonetheless, this is why I blog and have such fun with it because we voluntarily kill off 40,000 of us each year. This really is [mostly] voluntary in my opinion. Allow me to become Pat Robertson for a moment:
Truthfully, you might as well believe this. Might as well, because we fail to give the annual road death toll the proportionate level of concern as we do airline terrorism.
Following any given shoe bomber, underwear bomber, prosthetic leg bomber, or wheelchair bomber we go on red alert. Red Alert! This is acceptable, yes...to a degree. The thing is, we give so much attention, time and money to downed airliners, to determining cause, to providing for security, but for what? Several dozen lives annually?
We accept the madness of airport security and we will accept even more madness going forward, yet the very same people willing to get strip searched and probed in the nether area are the ones routinely voting down any measures to slow traffic, to allow the installation of more red-light cameras, to building correct roads, to provide for stricter cell phone laws -- the things that would cost much, much less to implement yet would save thousands more lives than a coupla crashed airplanes.
We accept airport security to preserve our way of life, the way of life supposedly threatened by airline terrorists. We accept the curtailment of these civil liberties yet can't put on a fucking seat belt in a car or a helmet while on a motorcycle.
More than 320,000 people have died on roads since 9/11. This is apparently an acceptable trade off against the, say, 732 that might have died at the hands of terrorists had we not done a damn thing different since. How many lives might have been saved had we not pulled traffic officers off the streets and into counterterrorism.
Nonetheless, this is why I blog and have such fun with it because we voluntarily kill off 40,000 of us each year. This really is [mostly] voluntary in my opinion. Allow me to become Pat Robertson for a moment:
- These 40,000 deaths are deserved because of gay marriage;
- These 40,000 deaths are because this nation has lost Jesus;
- These 40,000 deaths come because of America's pact with the devil;
- These 40,000 deaths are because we voted God out of our country;
- These 40,000 deaths are because we failed to assassinate Chavez;
Truthfully, you might as well believe this. Might as well, because we fail to give the annual road death toll the proportionate level of concern as we do airline terrorism.
Monday, January 18, 2010
Airport Scares
A few days ago yet another AIRPORT SCARE -- a Haitian immigrant walked in through the out door at JFK.
"Shut her down," the order came from security officials, "Shut that terminal down."
And so it goes. We're in crisis mode for some arbitrary and capricious time, after which we'll return to complacency mode. You gotta wonder -- how many immigrants, Chinese lovers, lost children, jaded mistresses, Alzheimer's patients, unauthorized airport sanitation workers, angry white women, and angst-ridden teens do you think errantly walked through those same security doors over the course of the last eighty four months since the last AIRPORT SCARE? Two dozen? More? If over the course of two weeks we've cracked down NY twice, most certainly these breeches of national security occur routinely.
I mean, I tried to sneak on board a bicycle tool kit for Christ's sakes...and got through four of six flights before it wasremoved from my possession stolen at Amsterdam. A terrorist? Please.
These are my monologues and I try to provide social commentary on the lunacy of our culture with tact, although I'm polarized and often offensive. Yet, to gain a truer picture of how the rest of my nation criticizes you only have to look to any newspaper's on-line comments. In the anonymity of cyberspace we find the true nature of our culture. This man, according to comments on the NY Daily News:
"Shut her down," the order came from security officials, "Shut that terminal down."
And so it goes. We're in crisis mode for some arbitrary and capricious time, after which we'll return to complacency mode. You gotta wonder -- how many immigrants, Chinese lovers, lost children, jaded mistresses, Alzheimer's patients, unauthorized airport sanitation workers, angry white women, and angst-ridden teens do you think errantly walked through those same security doors over the course of the last eighty four months since the last AIRPORT SCARE? Two dozen? More? If over the course of two weeks we've cracked down NY twice, most certainly these breeches of national security occur routinely.
I mean, I tried to sneak on board a bicycle tool kit for Christ's sakes...and got through four of six flights before it was
These are my monologues and I try to provide social commentary on the lunacy of our culture with tact, although I'm polarized and often offensive. Yet, to gain a truer picture of how the rest of my nation criticizes you only have to look to any newspaper's on-line comments. In the anonymity of cyberspace we find the true nature of our culture. This man, according to comments on the NY Daily News:- would understand English if the words "free food" or "free something" were being handed out.
- wouldn't have walked through that security door if it were labeled "IMMIGRATION."
- walked in because OJ Simpson told him to.
- likely practices Voodoo.
- is up to no good...what exactly would a Haitian be doing, hmmm? jet setting to NY on a regular basis?
Only in my America...
Saturday, January 16, 2010
National Force
I have lost my former allegiance to this country, the allegiance I had while in the Army. Two reasons-- our engagement in discretionary wars and age.
At 40 with type I diabetes I'm aware of my mortality, something I didn't think of twenty years prior. No one does when they're twenty. On a voluntary basis we join the services, we remember the mock gunfights we used to have as kids, it's male fantasy, it's not really fighting. Until it is. It's acceptable when you are invincible.
Secondly I cannot willfully accept the two trillion borrowed dollars and thousands of lives for wars of enrichment, wars to preserve our excessively consumptive way of life. An extremely polarizing position to take, my view is borne from the direct application of a lifestyle not dependent on the resources of foreign nations. If we had true energy independence, please, tell me we'd be prosecuting the Iraq war.
For this reason I am not one to support our troops. I might as well stand outside a WalMart and thank every patron as they walk out, thank them for consuming, for preserving our way of life. I might as well stand outside the Texaco station, thanking each patron who fills up for their services to our nation. The actions of a solider abroad and a domestic consumer are unequivocally tied at the hip and every one of us conveniently refuses to acknowledge this link. It doesn't matter to me whether or not either one is or isn't subjected to the terrors of war. Every action the soldier, the WalMarter, or the gas pumper takes is voluntary.
It really does seem stupid, in my opinion, to wave a flag on a freeway overcrossing while a dead soldier is paraded to her grave and then to drive my car ninety miles to work and back everyday. But hey, "this is my way of life and I will wave a flag and thank that vet and consume as much foreign oil as I damn well please. This is worth dying for. Indeed, it's worth her dying for."
I would absolutely, without question, honor these sailors for their service to Haiti:
Now, to me this is an appropriate use of national force. This provides a net gain to our human existence. American national security is improved more by the actions we will take in Haiti than anything we do in Afghanistan. In my opinion, American national security is not in the slightest degree threatened by the Taliban.
Problem is, while the American public cheers and throws parades for every C-130 going overseas to fight in countries that half of us can't find on a globe, we will ignore the real and valued impacts many of our service members will make in our own hemisphere. If we did this instead, perhaps I'd feel better about being an American. Perhaps I'd retain some allegiance towards our nation.
At 40 with type I diabetes I'm aware of my mortality, something I didn't think of twenty years prior. No one does when they're twenty. On a voluntary basis we join the services, we remember the mock gunfights we used to have as kids, it's male fantasy, it's not really fighting. Until it is. It's acceptable when you are invincible.
Secondly I cannot willfully accept the two trillion borrowed dollars and thousands of lives for wars of enrichment, wars to preserve our excessively consumptive way of life. An extremely polarizing position to take, my view is borne from the direct application of a lifestyle not dependent on the resources of foreign nations. If we had true energy independence, please, tell me we'd be prosecuting the Iraq war.
For this reason I am not one to support our troops. I might as well stand outside a WalMart and thank every patron as they walk out, thank them for consuming, for preserving our way of life. I might as well stand outside the Texaco station, thanking each patron who fills up for their services to our nation. The actions of a solider abroad and a domestic consumer are unequivocally tied at the hip and every one of us conveniently refuses to acknowledge this link. It doesn't matter to me whether or not either one is or isn't subjected to the terrors of war. Every action the soldier, the WalMarter, or the gas pumper takes is voluntary.
It really does seem stupid, in my opinion, to wave a flag on a freeway overcrossing while a dead soldier is paraded to her grave and then to drive my car ninety miles to work and back everyday. But hey, "this is my way of life and I will wave a flag and thank that vet and consume as much foreign oil as I damn well please. This is worth dying for. Indeed, it's worth her dying for."
I would absolutely, without question, honor these sailors for their service to Haiti:
Now, to me this is an appropriate use of national force. This provides a net gain to our human existence. American national security is improved more by the actions we will take in Haiti than anything we do in Afghanistan. In my opinion, American national security is not in the slightest degree threatened by the Taliban.
Problem is, while the American public cheers and throws parades for every C-130 going overseas to fight in countries that half of us can't find on a globe, we will ignore the real and valued impacts many of our service members will make in our own hemisphere. If we did this instead, perhaps I'd feel better about being an American. Perhaps I'd retain some allegiance towards our nation.
Friday, January 15, 2010
The Brown State
It's all about the motorist in my green state of California.
The latest proposal is to lower the sales tax on gasoline while raising the excise tax. To get this passed we will, temporarily, lower the sales tax more than the raising of the excise tax, to give drivers about $.06 savings per gallon.
But! Because gas sales taxes are mandated by law to specific uses such as public transit and public education, these uses are then curtailed. The excise tax, of course, can be used for myriad other things, notably to help balance the budget.
This proposal will effectively kill any possible expansion of light rail in Sacramento. This will destroy any possible improvement in the level of services provided by either RT or Elk Grovian e-tran. On top of [at least initially] lowering the cost of gasoline, thereby increasing demand, we will keep transit marginalized while encouraging more private automobile use.
The governor has spent the better part of his political career touting green jobs, green cars, green whales, green snails and all that, while this single proposal will destroy one of the most viable green things this state has -- public transit. This proposal tells me exactly where being green can go...straight to the shitcan when we fail to grow at 4%. As soon as a budget crisis rears, the environment is damned. Environmentalism is suitable only for periods of economic growth and booming bubbles. At other times, during deflated bubbles, stagnant growth and crushing levels of debt, it matters not.
This is proof that environmentalism is a total farce, that all this "greening" is pure horseshit. We raise hell if electricity costs more to get it from renewables or if discretionary gasoline is a nickel more expensive. We delay diesel emission controls, we destroy public transit. These are the actions of a brown state, not a green state.
Going green in California is one of the biggest bullshit stories ever told...right up there with what clergymen tell their parishioners.
The latest proposal is to lower the sales tax on gasoline while raising the excise tax. To get this passed we will, temporarily, lower the sales tax more than the raising of the excise tax, to give drivers about $.06 savings per gallon.
But! Because gas sales taxes are mandated by law to specific uses such as public transit and public education, these uses are then curtailed. The excise tax, of course, can be used for myriad other things, notably to help balance the budget.
This proposal will effectively kill any possible expansion of light rail in Sacramento. This will destroy any possible improvement in the level of services provided by either RT or Elk Grovian e-tran. On top of [at least initially] lowering the cost of gasoline, thereby increasing demand, we will keep transit marginalized while encouraging more private automobile use.
The governor has spent the better part of his political career touting green jobs, green cars, green whales, green snails and all that, while this single proposal will destroy one of the most viable green things this state has -- public transit. This proposal tells me exactly where being green can go...straight to the shitcan when we fail to grow at 4%. As soon as a budget crisis rears, the environment is damned. Environmentalism is suitable only for periods of economic growth and booming bubbles. At other times, during deflated bubbles, stagnant growth and crushing levels of debt, it matters not.
This is proof that environmentalism is a total farce, that all this "greening" is pure horseshit. We raise hell if electricity costs more to get it from renewables or if discretionary gasoline is a nickel more expensive. We delay diesel emission controls, we destroy public transit. These are the actions of a brown state, not a green state.
Going green in California is one of the biggest bullshit stories ever told...right up there with what clergymen tell their parishioners.
Red Light Runners
If most intersection accidents occur within 2 seconds of a light change, you'd wonder why traffic engineers don't just give all four directions a red light for two seconds before changing to a green.
I think it's because as soon as people understood that opposing traffic had to wait two seconds, there would be more red light runners. Red light runners would know that opposing traffic would just sit there for two seconds while they blew through red lights. They'd have a two second window to run the red.
Secondly, and perhaps more important to an engineer, is that a two second delay represents an under utilization of the intersection. For two seconds, no one is using it. What a waste! To push through as many motor vehicles as possible is Rule #1, and to allow a delay for the intersection to clear possible red light runners is anathema to that rule.
To combat the issue of red light runners, we could randomly time the delay from 0 to 4 seconds. Then we'd have, on average, a full two seconds of delay at the intersection which would decrease the number of accidents.
But no. There is not a single interchange anywhere where there is any delay between red and green. Not one...but remember, as I hesitate on my bike at the instant the light turns green, the first cars also hesitate by seeing me hesitate. I create the delay that our engineers won't. I am an active player in fucking up the Sacramento area traffic planning biblical passage of "thou shall not delay thy motorized vehicle lest thee be cast alive into the lake of fire." They plan to allow 100% capacity utilization of intersections and I'm making the intersections marginally safer by cutting into their designs.
I think it's because as soon as people understood that opposing traffic had to wait two seconds, there would be more red light runners. Red light runners would know that opposing traffic would just sit there for two seconds while they blew through red lights. They'd have a two second window to run the red.
Secondly, and perhaps more important to an engineer, is that a two second delay represents an under utilization of the intersection. For two seconds, no one is using it. What a waste! To push through as many motor vehicles as possible is Rule #1, and to allow a delay for the intersection to clear possible red light runners is anathema to that rule.
To combat the issue of red light runners, we could randomly time the delay from 0 to 4 seconds. Then we'd have, on average, a full two seconds of delay at the intersection which would decrease the number of accidents.
But no. There is not a single interchange anywhere where there is any delay between red and green. Not one...but remember, as I hesitate on my bike at the instant the light turns green, the first cars also hesitate by seeing me hesitate. I create the delay that our engineers won't. I am an active player in fucking up the Sacramento area traffic planning biblical passage of "thou shall not delay thy motorized vehicle lest thee be cast alive into the lake of fire." They plan to allow 100% capacity utilization of intersections and I'm making the intersections marginally safer by cutting into their designs.
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Tiki Iti
I am hopeful someday to get back in touch with Sean R. Guches, my best friend from high school who I've long since lost contact with.
His parents own the Avaiki, a 36-ft sloop (Fantasia?) and took Sean on a South Pacific trip in 1983. I tried for nearly a decade to adopt the culture of sailboat cruising but discovered it's not for me. Sean, I understand, now has his own 38-ft Down Easter, the Tiki Iti, and presumably is doing what he always wanted to do.
The idea of sailing fits well with the sorts of things I today promote -- sustainable transportation, lives not based on the wanton consumption of mindless consumer consumables, and the development of relationships with other people, both those who share common goals and with people of other cultures.
These ideas are wholly lacking around me. Few Elk Grovians truly recognize the lunacy of the way they move -- along high speed collector roads through single use zones, miles away from everything. They desire the good life now while deferring payment for it, via housal unit flipping, SUV amortization through cash-out re-fi'ing, and filling up their units with gobs of cheap foreign shit. Lastly, they view their neighbors not as social capital but as competitors, competing for the roadways, competing for that larger housal unit, competing for that elusive job.
They count on each other for nothing. This, in my opinion, is the single most destructive force we will face going forward. This will manifest itself in myriad ways. As soon as we are forced into a compromising situation, such as an economic depression or a resource scarcity, we will discover exactly how poorly we built our living and social structures. While I have never studied the American psyche during the great depression, my gut feeling tells me that most people of that era acted like citizens even under adversity. They counted on each other, they had a collective history of cooperative working relationships, there was an air of respectability towards one another. Today, people of our era act like consumers; it's me, me, me, I, I, I in a nation of demoralized over-entitled cretins who will sooner ditch you at their earliest convenience rather than attempt to pool resources, to build social capital, to share hardships. In my opinion, it is exceedingly hard to imagine any scenario where the people of our nation pull together for anything. We are already deeply polarized politically; we cannot effectively manage the finances of our nation, let alone develop any coherent energy policy. Once a real problem emerges, and it will, we will be in for a bumpy ride.
I will someday get back in touch with Sean and I'm certain to discover that for the last fifteen years he's probably followed the same course -- sharing a contempt for our culture at large. In his case he'll ditch the bow lines and perhaps find a wholly different realm where people matter; in mine, I'll continue to bicycle, promote sustainable energies, and blog on the wretched state of American affairs. We will continue to love doing what we do.
His parents own the Avaiki, a 36-ft sloop (Fantasia?) and took Sean on a South Pacific trip in 1983. I tried for nearly a decade to adopt the culture of sailboat cruising but discovered it's not for me. Sean, I understand, now has his own 38-ft Down Easter, the Tiki Iti, and presumably is doing what he always wanted to do.
The idea of sailing fits well with the sorts of things I today promote -- sustainable transportation, lives not based on the wanton consumption of mindless consumer consumables, and the development of relationships with other people, both those who share common goals and with people of other cultures.
These ideas are wholly lacking around me. Few Elk Grovians truly recognize the lunacy of the way they move -- along high speed collector roads through single use zones, miles away from everything. They desire the good life now while deferring payment for it, via housal unit flipping, SUV amortization through cash-out re-fi'ing, and filling up their units with gobs of cheap foreign shit. Lastly, they view their neighbors not as social capital but as competitors, competing for the roadways, competing for that larger housal unit, competing for that elusive job.
They count on each other for nothing. This, in my opinion, is the single most destructive force we will face going forward. This will manifest itself in myriad ways. As soon as we are forced into a compromising situation, such as an economic depression or a resource scarcity, we will discover exactly how poorly we built our living and social structures. While I have never studied the American psyche during the great depression, my gut feeling tells me that most people of that era acted like citizens even under adversity. They counted on each other, they had a collective history of cooperative working relationships, there was an air of respectability towards one another. Today, people of our era act like consumers; it's me, me, me, I, I, I in a nation of demoralized over-entitled cretins who will sooner ditch you at their earliest convenience rather than attempt to pool resources, to build social capital, to share hardships. In my opinion, it is exceedingly hard to imagine any scenario where the people of our nation pull together for anything. We are already deeply polarized politically; we cannot effectively manage the finances of our nation, let alone develop any coherent energy policy. Once a real problem emerges, and it will, we will be in for a bumpy ride.
I will someday get back in touch with Sean and I'm certain to discover that for the last fifteen years he's probably followed the same course -- sharing a contempt for our culture at large. In his case he'll ditch the bow lines and perhaps find a wholly different realm where people matter; in mine, I'll continue to bicycle, promote sustainable energies, and blog on the wretched state of American affairs. We will continue to love doing what we do.
Saturday, January 9, 2010
The Jaws Of Life
My monologues are always hinged on energy -- the way we use it, the way we get it, the way we pay for it. I directly discuss the social consequences of living in a country where the way we use energy is wantonly wasteful, the way we get it is through the prosecution of wars and environmental degradation, and the way we pay for it is through a debt based consumer economy, hallucinated wealth and traffic fatalities. Mostly, I thoroughly enjoy blogging about how wretched we go about this.
Tonight, however, I don't really enjoy it. We learned of a niece (to be clear, the niece of my sister-in-law) who was involved in a car wreck in Roseville last night. She was already a paraplegic, having lost the use of her legs ten years ago in a traffic accident, paralyzed from the waist down. She was being driven by a boyfriend who crashed into the back of a parked car, and she, not wearing her seatbelt, broke both femurs and is suffering from internal bleeding.
She was not wearing a seatbelt and was extracted with the jaws of life. He was booked into Placer county under suspicion of DUI. He escaped injury save for a cut lip.
We are so damn eager to develop a homeland security department, to keep 140,000 soldiers in Iraq, deploy thousands more to Afghanistan, and to spend over two trillion dollars ($2,000,000,000,000) to save, perhaps, 5,000 more lives from dying at the hands of terrorists, yet we routinely accept that the way we move involves risks and those risks (see above) are acceptable.
If this is how we are gonna spend our money, well, OK. It is wholly misguided in my opinion, but then, my opinion matters little. I will never be in a position to allocate such things and I never will. Truthfully, if all of you choose to believe you are better drivers than most, that you are less likely than the average driver to be involved in a crash, that you drive an SUV because it feels safer yet you drive it in more dangerous ways, and that you tailgate me because you have blind faith that I will never have any reason to suddenly stop, well, you're only doing what every other American is doing. Go ahead, tell your children that our dead soldiers are now in heaven guarding the angels from Islamic terrorists, and that mom and dad willingly and gleefully shoveled out thousands of theirtheir hard earned children's dollars in wars on terror, blowing up suspicious packages left at bus stops and shutting down airport terminals for a good-bye kiss, while passively accepting that as many neighbors die each month by drunk drivers and other assholes as have ever been killed by terror.
This car crash, injuring this girl -- the victim is out of sight. Her injury is dispersed in time and space, without regard to all other injuries that came before hers. There is no regular accumulator, like the number of dead US soldiers in Iraq, no number to tally all those injured. There are no vigils, no pledges for "support our injured" like we "support our troops." We just assume it can happen to anyone and drive on.
Tonight, however, I don't really enjoy it. We learned of a niece (to be clear, the niece of my sister-in-law) who was involved in a car wreck in Roseville last night. She was already a paraplegic, having lost the use of her legs ten years ago in a traffic accident, paralyzed from the waist down. She was being driven by a boyfriend who crashed into the back of a parked car, and she, not wearing her seatbelt, broke both femurs and is suffering from internal bleeding.
She was not wearing a seatbelt and was extracted with the jaws of life. He was booked into Placer county under suspicion of DUI. He escaped injury save for a cut lip.
We are so damn eager to develop a homeland security department, to keep 140,000 soldiers in Iraq, deploy thousands more to Afghanistan, and to spend over two trillion dollars ($2,000,000,000,000) to save, perhaps, 5,000 more lives from dying at the hands of terrorists, yet we routinely accept that the way we move involves risks and those risks (see above) are acceptable.
If this is how we are gonna spend our money, well, OK. It is wholly misguided in my opinion, but then, my opinion matters little. I will never be in a position to allocate such things and I never will. Truthfully, if all of you choose to believe you are better drivers than most, that you are less likely than the average driver to be involved in a crash, that you drive an SUV because it feels safer yet you drive it in more dangerous ways, and that you tailgate me because you have blind faith that I will never have any reason to suddenly stop, well, you're only doing what every other American is doing. Go ahead, tell your children that our dead soldiers are now in heaven guarding the angels from Islamic terrorists, and that mom and dad willingly and gleefully shoveled out thousands of their
This car crash, injuring this girl -- the victim is out of sight. Her injury is dispersed in time and space, without regard to all other injuries that came before hers. There is no regular accumulator, like the number of dead US soldiers in Iraq, no number to tally all those injured. There are no vigils, no pledges for "support our injured" like we "support our troops." We just assume it can happen to anyone and drive on.
Smarte Rhoades
This is where I see technology going in my America.
In the not too distant future, I expect every motor vehicle to come equipped with an event recorder which will process and record analog events such as acceleration, velocity and direction, and digital events such as brake pedal action, airbag deployment, and turn signaling.
Now imagine it's the year 2022, and a group of seven vehicles so equipped are traveling southbound on Franklin Blvd., and for a wayward shovel in the #1 lane they are forced to come to a sudden stop. The last car crashes into the sixth (a 1974 Pinto) whose gas tank explodes, killing two and maiming one for life. Today, in 2010, we'd more or less find fault with the last car for failing to keep sufficient following distance and that would be the end of it.
In my future America, lawyers representing driver #7 will subpoena to download the event records from all vehicles in this platoon and will hire an expert to examine the braking trajectories of all the vehicles:
And wouldn't you know it. The first car stopped before hitting the errant shovel, yes, but the fourth car, it was determined, was overly slow to react, and therefore consumed a larger portion of the shared resource of braking distance allocated among all the cars. This left the cars farther back progressively less time and space in which to stop to the point where the last car, even though it reacted faster than #4, could not stop in time. #4, arguably, bore a considerable responsibility for the fatalities in #6.
Driver of #4 is jailed without bail, arraigned on manslaughter and assault with a deadly weapon charges, convicted and sentenced. Driver #7 is acquitted because his reaction time was faster than #4.
This conviction, as it turns out, was just what was needed to sway the public towards passage of the landmark Smarte Rhoades legislation in 2023, where human controls are legislatively removed from most driving functions. The public memories of the spectacular failure of the smart grid to lower electric power costs had grown dim, and Smarte Rhoades, it was said, would learn from the past mistakes and revolutionize the way we travel. An excerpt from the executive summary of this landmark bill reads:
...with human proclivities towards error removed, Smarte Rhoades will take a pragmatic, integrated approach towards a better transportation future. Smarte Rhoades will leverage existing technologies to a greater extent while driving a higher level of integration to realize the synergies across enterprise integration. The future of transport is NOW. The future is TODAY.
In the not too distant future, I expect every motor vehicle to come equipped with an event recorder which will process and record analog events such as acceleration, velocity and direction, and digital events such as brake pedal action, airbag deployment, and turn signaling.
Now imagine it's the year 2022, and a group of seven vehicles so equipped are traveling southbound on Franklin Blvd., and for a wayward shovel in the #1 lane they are forced to come to a sudden stop. The last car crashes into the sixth (a 1974 Pinto) whose gas tank explodes, killing two and maiming one for life. Today, in 2010, we'd more or less find fault with the last car for failing to keep sufficient following distance and that would be the end of it.
In my future America, lawyers representing driver #7 will subpoena to download the event records from all vehicles in this platoon and will hire an expert to examine the braking trajectories of all the vehicles:
And wouldn't you know it. The first car stopped before hitting the errant shovel, yes, but the fourth car, it was determined, was overly slow to react, and therefore consumed a larger portion of the shared resource of braking distance allocated among all the cars. This left the cars farther back progressively less time and space in which to stop to the point where the last car, even though it reacted faster than #4, could not stop in time. #4, arguably, bore a considerable responsibility for the fatalities in #6.
Driver of #4 is jailed without bail, arraigned on manslaughter and assault with a deadly weapon charges, convicted and sentenced. Driver #7 is acquitted because his reaction time was faster than #4.
This conviction, as it turns out, was just what was needed to sway the public towards passage of the landmark Smarte Rhoades legislation in 2023, where human controls are legislatively removed from most driving functions. The public memories of the spectacular failure of the smart grid to lower electric power costs had grown dim, and Smarte Rhoades, it was said, would learn from the past mistakes and revolutionize the way we travel. An excerpt from the executive summary of this landmark bill reads:
...with human proclivities towards error removed, Smarte Rhoades will take a pragmatic, integrated approach towards a better transportation future. Smarte Rhoades will leverage existing technologies to a greater extent while driving a higher level of integration to realize the synergies across enterprise integration. The future of transport is NOW. The future is TODAY.
Fox Two
A regular reader will recall that we live in a crisis and complacency America.
A week or so after a failed airline bombing we're again in crisis mode after a few years of complacency. Terror in the skies! Every drunk is now a hostile! Every enthusiastic Chinese American looking to score points with his girlfriend is now a "defiant trespasser!"
Perhaps the military could first ascertain who exactly is in the cockpit through visual inspection. Pilots? A drunk who battered his way into the cockpit? Of course, the obvious question becomes whether the military would intentionally down a commercial aircraft if it became clear that a "hostile" had commandeered it. Wouldn't that be something, huh? Some guy from Ames, Iowa works hard in high school, graduates from the Air Force Academy, gets trained as a fighter pilot and lives with the memory of killing 237 civilians, 7 crewmembers and 1 inebriated "hostile" after an order to disable the aircraft with an AIM-9 sidewinder.
I am so glad I'm not traveling anytime soon. I am not one to take airport security well. Before it was mandatory to remove footwear, I didn't. I emphatically didn't, actually, because it was fucking stupid, which always led to a secondary screening. Didn't bother me. In fact, it shouldn't bother you either, even if I'm holding up the show. That I received a secondary screening means that I'm even safer to all passengers. Don't you feel safer when others get their shit rifled through and get their shoes sniffed for explosives residue? You should, because that's the whole point of airport security -- to provide the illusion of safety. The more others are searched, the safer you feel. The more you are searched, the more aggravated you get.
Regardless, from my chair here I find it quite humorous to watch the reactions of my America, from military escorts, evacuations due to unknown smells, crackdowns due to some .22 bullets rolling around in the cabin, to security lockdowns of whole terminals...Americans over reacting because the time for complacency has passed and crisis has taken over.
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Winter's Bane
Lisa Jackson's EPA is on the warpath again, this time providing for even stricter limits on ground level ozone.
I wonder if my chronic bronchitis, which I get every winter, is aggravated by pollutants, particularly from mobile sources as I ride the bike along Franklin Blvd all year long.
I would be willing to pay a nickel more for a box of Triscuits and a nickel more per kWh to see these limits enforced. But perhaps I'm only willing because in my particular case I have bronchitis that is likely aggravated by smog. Perhaps if I didn't, and if my job security depended on fewer regulations on the burning of fossil fuels I might feel otherwise.
I don't find the American Petroleum Institute's argument very compelling...that we will kill jobs, the economy, and energy security with such regulation. Wrong. We've done that on our own with unregulated financial products, cheap credit, the evisceration of our manufacturing base and the American mantra of consume, consume, consume while deferring payment for all of it. Reduce energy security? What fucking planet are these people on? That somehow moving from a .075 to a .06 PPM limit means we'll be less secure in a nation full of over-consumptive energy hogs? Please.
The quality of my life is measurably diminished due to this chronic bronchitis. Headaches every afternoon between December and April from persistent, non-stop coughing. The wife's quality of life is diminished, too, because I'll cough just as the crime-drama on TV reveals the killer... If I can't consume as much power or gasoline but I am granted relief from this condition, that is a wholly acceptable trade off. I'm sure there are thousands of others in the same boat.
I wonder if my chronic bronchitis, which I get every winter, is aggravated by pollutants, particularly from mobile sources as I ride the bike along Franklin Blvd all year long.
I would be willing to pay a nickel more for a box of Triscuits and a nickel more per kWh to see these limits enforced. But perhaps I'm only willing because in my particular case I have bronchitis that is likely aggravated by smog. Perhaps if I didn't, and if my job security depended on fewer regulations on the burning of fossil fuels I might feel otherwise.
I don't find the American Petroleum Institute's argument very compelling...that we will kill jobs, the economy, and energy security with such regulation. Wrong. We've done that on our own with unregulated financial products, cheap credit, the evisceration of our manufacturing base and the American mantra of consume, consume, consume while deferring payment for all of it. Reduce energy security? What fucking planet are these people on? That somehow moving from a .075 to a .06 PPM limit means we'll be less secure in a nation full of over-consumptive energy hogs? Please.
The quality of my life is measurably diminished due to this chronic bronchitis. Headaches every afternoon between December and April from persistent, non-stop coughing. The wife's quality of life is diminished, too, because I'll cough just as the crime-drama on TV reveals the killer... If I can't consume as much power or gasoline but I am granted relief from this condition, that is a wholly acceptable trade off. I'm sure there are thousands of others in the same boat.
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Thousands Feared Threatened
$200 million. $200,000,000 needed just to provide for NY security while we run through the mock trial of Kahlid Mohammed. This will be farcical because our government could never acquit him if the jury acquits him. What is the point of a trial if the outcome is determined? If the outcome isn't what we expect? Doesn't the presumption of innocence presume that prosecutorial failure, a hung jury or accquital is an option? By undermining that presumption, this is wholly laughable, particularly when this "Demonstration of American Fairness" is the rationale for putting on this show in the first place.
Two hundred million more blown on the War On Terror. Two hundred million more to lawyers to prosecute Mohammed. A half a billion dollars. Only in my America.
I find it humorous, really, to learn today of fighter jets scrambled to divert a Hawai'i bound plane to Portland due to an unruly passenger. Humorous, indeed, to learn of the thousands of inconvenienced airline passengers at Newark due to an exuberant New Yorker, perhaps just some guy eagerly awaiting his mistress to return home from holiday. Six hours of crackdowns, security sweeps, hostile sterilizations, and threat neutralisations ensued...Thousands Feared Theatened. I find it humorous, hilarious really, that we are going to spend $734,566,200 to throw technology like full body scanners at terror prevention while a guard with a triple digit salary allows some guy to go in through the out door.
Tell me that the most desirable job in the world would be to sit at a podium at the Sacramento airport making sure people only walk out along a twenty three foot wide corridor. What prevents these people from going home and putting a bullet in their head after their shift? It has got to be among the most dulling, mindless, rote jobs on the planet. I'd bet days, perhaps weeks go by before they get any action: perhaps a woman who forgot her Boysenberry on the plane trying to get back in, or a disoriented old man.
This is where I see airline travel going:
Get in, sit down, and don't wiggle while the body holding apparatus locks down over you for the duration of your flight. Come on -- won't you feel safer? Of course you would! Terrorists won't have a fucking chance!
The inclusion of technology is designed, in my opinion, to remove as much of the human element out of terrorist screenings -- through bomb sniffing machines, explosive trace detectors, full body scanners, X-rays, gamma rays, computed tomography scans, radio waves, what have you. Just like the smart electric grid or intelligent highways -- both of which are "smart" precisely because they expressly remove human decision making. That said, why not just use a phalanx of turnstiles in series and eliminate the human factor at airport exits?
I'll say, to watch some overweight American wrestle their way through one of these with ninety pounds of baggage would be priceless.
Two hundred million more blown on the War On Terror. Two hundred million more to lawyers to prosecute Mohammed. A half a billion dollars. Only in my America.
I find it humorous, really, to learn today of fighter jets scrambled to divert a Hawai'i bound plane to Portland due to an unruly passenger. Humorous, indeed, to learn of the thousands of inconvenienced airline passengers at Newark due to an exuberant New Yorker, perhaps just some guy eagerly awaiting his mistress to return home from holiday. Six hours of crackdowns, security sweeps, hostile sterilizations, and threat neutralisations ensued...Thousands Feared Theatened. I find it humorous, hilarious really, that we are going to spend $734,566,200 to throw technology like full body scanners at terror prevention while a guard with a triple digit salary allows some guy to go in through the out door.
Tell me that the most desirable job in the world would be to sit at a podium at the Sacramento airport making sure people only walk out along a twenty three foot wide corridor. What prevents these people from going home and putting a bullet in their head after their shift? It has got to be among the most dulling, mindless, rote jobs on the planet. I'd bet days, perhaps weeks go by before they get any action: perhaps a woman who forgot her Boysenberry on the plane trying to get back in, or a disoriented old man.
This is where I see airline travel going:
Get in, sit down, and don't wiggle while the body holding apparatus locks down over you for the duration of your flight. Come on -- won't you feel safer? Of course you would! Terrorists won't have a fucking chance!
The inclusion of technology is designed, in my opinion, to remove as much of the human element out of terrorist screenings -- through bomb sniffing machines, explosive trace detectors, full body scanners, X-rays, gamma rays, computed tomography scans, radio waves, what have you. Just like the smart electric grid or intelligent highways -- both of which are "smart" precisely because they expressly remove human decision making. That said, why not just use a phalanx of turnstiles in series and eliminate the human factor at airport exits?
I'll say, to watch some overweight American wrestle their way through one of these with ninety pounds of baggage would be priceless.
Mixed Used Article on EG News
Glimmer of Hope For Elk Grove’s Commercial Real Estate
Following two years of bewildering home foreclosures and a high vacancy rate for commercial real estate, one the city’s largest commercial property owners announced the opening of five new retail and office tenants.
According to Jackson Properties, Inc., the company has signed leases for five new tenants at its Laguna Pointe development. Located on the southeast corner of Laguna Boulevard and Stockton Boulevard East, the mixed used development already hosts a variety of businesses including the popular BJ’s Brewery and Restaurant, Hilton Garden Inn Hotel and Edward Jones.
More possible leases despite tough economic times
“The Laguna Pointe project continues to attract new tenants even in an economy that is going through some turbulent times,” President of Jackson Properties John Jackson, Jr. said. “We are in discussions with other potential tenants and will be making more announcements as we sign future leases.”
The five new tenants include Taglio Salon & Spa, East/West Café, Sylvan Learning Center, Dance 2 D Rhythm fitness center and electrical contractor Kirkland & Jones.
Posted by EG at 10:09 AM
1 comments:
Insania said...
All right -- how exactly is the intersection of Laguna and
This is not even close to a real mixed use development. Is it zoned for more than one activity? No. Shopping Center (SC) zone here. Business Park (BP) zone there. Residential is forbidden...it's zoned elsewhere. And the only way to access this mixed use area? By car. No Elk Grovian of sound mind would consider walking the two+ miles from their residential zone along that 10-lane Laguna Freeway to get to BJs. If you did, you'd likely be cast under immediate suspicion.
To be blunt, the author uses the term "mixed used." The sign on the corner of Franklin Blvd. and Florin calls the Southgate Plaza Shopping Center "mix used." No one knows the correct term, let alone understands what it means, but it's thrown out there as if we actually employ it. Elk Grove is completely, 100% devoid of mixed use development, not even Old Town.
Mixed use provides for residential, light industrial, office, and retail to co-exist, ideally providing a light rail or other transit node as well. It is walkable. It's not a panacea to urban design but we don't even have the choice to live in a mixed use development because there aren't any in Elk Grove. The cities that do, the cities that have healthy urban areas are among the most sought after, valuable places in the world.
Tell me that your existing Elk Grovian subdivision will improve with age. That it will be more desirable, not less, to live in in 2027, that it won't just turn to liquid shit. That the Home Depot at this so-called mixed use interchange won't just abandon the store, build a newer bigger one on Bilby or Kammerer, leaving a ghost box with covenants that prevent competitors from occupying it. It is my belief that Elk Grove is destined to go the way of Valley Hi, Meadowview, and Rosemont (i.e., areas also without a correct mix of jobs/housing) because of the terrible direction we've gone -- cheap buildings, cheap architecture, cheap trees, no places to walk or bike, and someday a cheap open air mall.
We've built a city that is not going to be worth living in in a few decades once the newness of our homes and big box stores fades. There is nothing built with any enduring value, with charm, with the expectation that we will want to take care of the places we live. We don't have any jobs here to anchor us, either.
Those of us with means? We will all sooner elect to leave. Buy into that new subdivison, call it "Franklin Heights," on top of the former town of Franklin, farther away from everything, farther away from jobs, using more and more energy.
Sunday, January 3, 2010
No One Does
We've recently made the acquaintance of a couple who've lived in Elk Grove since 1987 -- well, precisely, in the town of Franklin. Lived in the same house that whole time...yet can't forecast the day when their mortgage will be paid off.
I worked with a power dispatcher at WAPA who said the same thing in 1996 when I left -- he'd had a house since 1981 and by 1996 owed more on it then than the day he bought it.
Paying off mortgage debt, I believe, was perhaps drilled into the American psyche of former generations but it isn't for any of ours. It's not a function of personal finance anymore. True, I don't know the financial details of any of these people -- but there are hardly any who espouse any penchant for actually paying it off. Everyone wants to, but no one does. Granted, my reference is a handful of people in a region hard hit by foreclosures. It might not extend beyond Elk Grove...but I think it likely...
I learned about one couple in particular. He said his [fairly new] boat was paid for. Separately, she said they cashed out re-fi'ed "'cause everyone else was doing it and it seemed like a good idea at the time," leading to the current state of a perpetual mortgage.
That's a sublime statement: everyone else was doing it. It extends well beyond my own little circle of acquaintances methinks. In reviewing the foreclosure notices in the Ft. Collins newspaper last spring, mortgage balances on every home closed in 2005-2006 were all greater than the original note, leading me to believe that people never had any intention on paying their mortgages off. They lusted after the capital appreciation and gain, but hadn't considered that there's still the underlying mortgage that needs servicing.
Today we are propping up new home buying by at least $8,000 in federal tax credits, perhaps more if the states are throwing monies they don't have into these sorts of programs as well. It may appear that these owners are benefiting, but that the prices are artifically kept up because of it, that their taxes over the next thirty years will be paying that back, they aren't really gaining. And by offering the $8,000 credit against the down payment, we've done absolutely nothing to reinforce ideas of responsible personal finance. We will create yet another generation who will come to expect such things as these tax credits as an inalienable right.
I worked with a power dispatcher at WAPA who said the same thing in 1996 when I left -- he'd had a house since 1981 and by 1996 owed more on it then than the day he bought it.
Paying off mortgage debt, I believe, was perhaps drilled into the American psyche of former generations but it isn't for any of ours. It's not a function of personal finance anymore. True, I don't know the financial details of any of these people -- but there are hardly any who espouse any penchant for actually paying it off. Everyone wants to, but no one does. Granted, my reference is a handful of people in a region hard hit by foreclosures. It might not extend beyond Elk Grove...but I think it likely...
I learned about one couple in particular. He said his [fairly new] boat was paid for. Separately, she said they cashed out re-fi'ed "'cause everyone else was doing it and it seemed like a good idea at the time," leading to the current state of a perpetual mortgage.
That's a sublime statement: everyone else was doing it. It extends well beyond my own little circle of acquaintances methinks. In reviewing the foreclosure notices in the Ft. Collins newspaper last spring, mortgage balances on every home closed in 2005-2006 were all greater than the original note, leading me to believe that people never had any intention on paying their mortgages off. They lusted after the capital appreciation and gain, but hadn't considered that there's still the underlying mortgage that needs servicing.
Today we are propping up new home buying by at least $8,000 in federal tax credits, perhaps more if the states are throwing monies they don't have into these sorts of programs as well. It may appear that these owners are benefiting, but that the prices are artifically kept up because of it, that their taxes over the next thirty years will be paying that back, they aren't really gaining. And by offering the $8,000 credit against the down payment, we've done absolutely nothing to reinforce ideas of responsible personal finance. We will create yet another generation who will come to expect such things as these tax credits as an inalienable right.
Friday, January 1, 2010
Forecast 2010
This has been a trying effort to develop specific predictions for the coming year. For whatever reason, 2009 was much easier to even make predictions, let alone make nearly all good calls:
California indeed delayed its diesel emission standards due to lack of fortitude;
Oil floated at the $60 average for the year; we are today more dependent on foreign oil, not less;
My e-Tran service was cut, and fares were increased;
The announced Chevy Volt price point is above $40,000;
The Big Three are on public life support, too big to fail;
No progress on light rail into Elk Grove; indeed, it's likely farther in the future than before;
EPA granted California its waiver request;
Gold is above $900 an ounce.
We have more troops in Afghanistan, not less, than what we had on Jan 1, 2009.
I did miss the Dow, though. I suppose I'm not as irrationally exuberant as other investors, thinking that slashing costs and payrolls would provide what would have historically been revenue. But, that's what it is. Can't win them all.
This coming year I see as quite chaotic, and as such I don't think I can accurately predict a damn thing, and so I won't try for 2010. I would like to offer much more vague and nebulous predictions. I said that 2009 was to be a year of complacency, and I think overall most people would probably agree with that assessment. My prediction for 2010, however, is one of crisis, not wholly dissimilar to 2008. I believe we are in for a protracted recession that will not clear itself out in 2010. I believe that as we further expose the underlying fundamentals of federal debt, state debt, county debt, municipal debt, and personal debt, as we begin to expire 36-month long unemployment benefits, as we expose a stock market valued not on revenue, and as people begin to realize the extent of the damage, we are in for a long year.
I should say, a long year for many of you.
A debt based consumer growth economy such as ours cannot shake off the financial crisis of the last two years like a bad case of fleas; no, I think they've dug in deep and this will be a long protracted battle to pull them off the dog. We are going to try another round of stimulus sometime in 2010 once we realize that the old efforts weren't at all sufficient in a desperate attempt to get consumers consuming consumables again. They can't. We've got nothing left to pull from except what we're earning, and that's going to go down in 2010. Continued pressures from high unemployment will create a falling wage that isn't conducive to buying shit we don't need with money we don't have. Credit extensions to businesses and individuals will be even tighter in 2010 while we bitch and moan about it -- that's right, we'll bitch and moan that banks are offering credit only to the creditworthy. This will all work to further constrain Our Way Of Life -- to consume more than we should while deferring payment for it.
I see 2010 as the year of the realization that for people like me and all other California public employees:
I will reside in the deflationist camp for 2010, which will lead to a rising dollar and falling commodity prices including equities. Gone are the days of flipping housal units while sitting on a beach, earning twenty percent. I don't see housal unit prices across the nation rising in 2010. I believe that there is so much shadow inventory out there that isn't yet marketed, such that any increase in values will cause more supply to emerge. Foreclosures probably have waned, yes, but the wreckage is still burning. Underwater people can't cash-out re-fi...most of us are up to our eyeballs in debt and can't refinance our way out of it. I see three pages per week in the Elk Grove Citizen with notices of default for the duration of 2010.
Regardless of any published statistics, I see no way out of recession in 2010. While we will likely publish GDP growth, I don't think any of us on Jan 1, 2011 will believe that we've emerged. I don't know how it will shape up -- double-dip, U shaped, whatever -- I see us still mired in recession, trying to dig out from decades of reckless lifestyles, hyperconsumerism, and profligate energy use.
And through it all, through 2010, we will begin to realize just how tenuous our relationships are with one another, just how little most of us Americans relate to each other, how little sense of public good we share, and just how few common values any of us hold. My sister believes that the next generation will have a lowered standard of living. If true, when it rears its head in the form of lower-paying jobs, decreasing social benefits and entitlements and worsening freeways, the sorts of things I predict for 2010 -- will this generation of obsese, over entitled, grand-theft-auto playing thugs really develop the social frameworks necessary to thrive in such a transition?
I don't see it orderly, which is why I predict a coming chaos. It won't be radical, but it will be there in 2010.
California indeed delayed its diesel emission standards due to lack of fortitude;
Oil floated at the $60 average for the year; we are today more dependent on foreign oil, not less;
My e-Tran service was cut, and fares were increased;
The announced Chevy Volt price point is above $40,000;
The Big Three are on public life support, too big to fail;
No progress on light rail into Elk Grove; indeed, it's likely farther in the future than before;
EPA granted California its waiver request;
Gold is above $900 an ounce.
We have more troops in Afghanistan, not less, than what we had on Jan 1, 2009.
I did miss the Dow, though. I suppose I'm not as irrationally exuberant as other investors, thinking that slashing costs and payrolls would provide what would have historically been revenue. But, that's what it is. Can't win them all.
This coming year I see as quite chaotic, and as such I don't think I can accurately predict a damn thing, and so I won't try for 2010. I would like to offer much more vague and nebulous predictions. I said that 2009 was to be a year of complacency, and I think overall most people would probably agree with that assessment. My prediction for 2010, however, is one of crisis, not wholly dissimilar to 2008. I believe we are in for a protracted recession that will not clear itself out in 2010. I believe that as we further expose the underlying fundamentals of federal debt, state debt, county debt, municipal debt, and personal debt, as we begin to expire 36-month long unemployment benefits, as we expose a stock market valued not on revenue, and as people begin to realize the extent of the damage, we are in for a long year.
I should say, a long year for many of you.
A debt based consumer growth economy such as ours cannot shake off the financial crisis of the last two years like a bad case of fleas; no, I think they've dug in deep and this will be a long protracted battle to pull them off the dog. We are going to try another round of stimulus sometime in 2010 once we realize that the old efforts weren't at all sufficient in a desperate attempt to get consumers consuming consumables again. They can't. We've got nothing left to pull from except what we're earning, and that's going to go down in 2010. Continued pressures from high unemployment will create a falling wage that isn't conducive to buying shit we don't need with money we don't have. Credit extensions to businesses and individuals will be even tighter in 2010 while we bitch and moan about it -- that's right, we'll bitch and moan that banks are offering credit only to the creditworthy. This will all work to further constrain Our Way Of Life -- to consume more than we should while deferring payment for it.
I see 2010 as the year of the realization that for people like me and all other California public employees:
- Wages are out of line with reality;
- Pensions are out of line with reality;
- Benefits are out of line with reality;
- Retirement age is out of line with reality.
I will reside in the deflationist camp for 2010, which will lead to a rising dollar and falling commodity prices including equities. Gone are the days of flipping housal units while sitting on a beach, earning twenty percent. I don't see housal unit prices across the nation rising in 2010. I believe that there is so much shadow inventory out there that isn't yet marketed, such that any increase in values will cause more supply to emerge. Foreclosures probably have waned, yes, but the wreckage is still burning. Underwater people can't cash-out re-fi...most of us are up to our eyeballs in debt and can't refinance our way out of it. I see three pages per week in the Elk Grove Citizen with notices of default for the duration of 2010.
Regardless of any published statistics, I see no way out of recession in 2010. While we will likely publish GDP growth, I don't think any of us on Jan 1, 2011 will believe that we've emerged. I don't know how it will shape up -- double-dip, U shaped, whatever -- I see us still mired in recession, trying to dig out from decades of reckless lifestyles, hyperconsumerism, and profligate energy use.
And through it all, through 2010, we will begin to realize just how tenuous our relationships are with one another, just how little most of us Americans relate to each other, how little sense of public good we share, and just how few common values any of us hold. My sister believes that the next generation will have a lowered standard of living. If true, when it rears its head in the form of lower-paying jobs, decreasing social benefits and entitlements and worsening freeways, the sorts of things I predict for 2010 -- will this generation of obsese, over entitled, grand-theft-auto playing thugs really develop the social frameworks necessary to thrive in such a transition?
I don't see it orderly, which is why I predict a coming chaos. It won't be radical, but it will be there in 2010.
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