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Friday, May 31, 2013
Thursday, May 30, 2013
2016 Presidential Ticket?
The two cartoons above are snarky but funny. I should not have put them on here - 10 pushups for me.
It is remarkable is that anyone runs for political office given the level of character assassination that is routine. And of course a lot of good people do not run for just this issue.
Very partisan D's and R's are of course the worst. They scream and rant and demonize. You would think Obama/Bush/Clinton were the new Satan, instead of
pretty decent and competent guys.
Appointive office in government is almost as bad. Why all my friends (and I a few times) would become city managers is hard to understand. You take the job knowing that at some future date the long knives will come out and you will be
fired for something.
The jokes I use with my city manager friends follow.
Would you trust anyone to manage your city who had such poor judgement that he would take a job working for 7 elected politicians, any 4 who can fire her at any time for any reason?
City management is much like running on top of a large rolling greasy ball.
City management is an oxymoron and an unatural act.
I am ok with the funny joke about our government leaders. It is the incessant nitpicking accusations from both the left and right that are irritating. I just consign these opinions where they belong and think less of the person and/or political party making the outrageous and unfair accusation.
Sunday, May 26, 2013
Thursday, May 23, 2013
California City Wants to Require Solar on Every New Home
A Republican mayor campaigns for a historic requirement for solar on new homes.
HERMAN K. TRABISH: MARCH 1, 2013
Rex Parris, the mayor of Lancaster, California, wants every new home in his city to host solar. And starting next January, that could be a reality.
Yesterday in Lancaster, homebuilder KB Home celebrated its 1,000th new home with solar panels from SunPower. Speaking at the event, Mayor Parris announced his city will institute a first-of-its-kind requirement that solar be installed on every new single-family home built in Lancaster after January 1, 2014.
The new law will be written into Lancaster’s “Residential Zones Update” on residential solar. Along with a range of green building provisions, it specifies that new single family homes meet minimum solar system requirements.
“The purpose of the solar energy system standards,” it reads, “is to encourage investment in solar energy on all parcels in the city, while providing guidelines for the installation of those systems that are consistent with the architectural and building standards of the City.” It is further intended “to provide standards and procedures for builders of new homes to install solar energy systems in an effort to achieve greater usage of alternative energy.”
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I like solar and recently installed it in my home. But I am not too sure about a municipality requiring it. Cities can mandate minimum building and zoning standards. But requiring solar? Seems a bit far I am happier about simply providing incentives and let the happy homeowner decide.
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
Climate Change Over The Past 18,000 Years
"Global Warming" is not a new phenomenon.
Average temperatures did not rise slowly and smoothly to present levels following the last glacial period. Instead, average temperatures increased fairly rapidly until about 8,000 years ago, at which time they were close to current levels. But then, warming continued for almost two thousand years, rising to higher levels than we have seen recently.
Around six thousand years ago, average temperatures dropped rapidly; reaching levels lower than today, and stayed lower for a thousand years.
In fact, over the past seven thousand years, there appear to have been six significant cycles of interglacial cooling and warming.
Warm periods have coincided with significant periods of societal change and architectural accomplishment in many parts of the world. The Medieval Warm Period, from about 850 until 1250 AD, was a time of unusually warm climate in Europe. Other warm periods spanned the peak of Egyptian civilization (2600 to 2200 BC), the late Roman Republic and peak of the Roman empire (roughly 100 BC through 200 AD) , and the Twentieth Century,
 This NOAA plot shows the agency's best estimates for average temperatures over the past 1000 years . 
The Medieval Warm Period was followed by a cooler period which is often referred to as the Little Ice Age. It lasted from about the mid to late 1300s into the late 1800s, almost 500 years. The the bitter cold winters depicted in scenes of the American Revolution, in the 1770s, occurred during this period.
A hundred years ago, following the end of the last prolonged cool period, the Titanic hit an iceberg that was one of many which were released as a then-welcome spell of global warming began to be felt.
The end of the "Little Ice Age" period, in the mid to late 1800s, roughly coincided with the start of a significant rise in industrial activities. Some people claim that industrialization is the cause of the warming trend since then. It may be equally true that the warming trend spawned the vibrant growth of society and industry that began as temperatures began to rise.
It is currently popular to point to the increasing industrialization of the world, coupled with significant human population growth, as primary factors contributing to increases in the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. However, it is very likely that there are multiple interrelated links between the rise in average global temperatures and the rising carbon dioxide content of air over the past hundred years.
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Click to read the full article
http://www.uigi.com/air.html
Friday, May 17, 2013
Climate Change
What the Scientific Debate Over Climate Change Looks Like: 97.1% Agreement
AP
It is true that there is not unanimity in the scientific community over the role of humans in climate change. But with over 97 percent of scientists agreeing that warming is linked to human behavior, science is as close to unanimity as it's likely to get.
Researchers from a number of universities and institutes — including, we'll note, some that do advocacy work — looked at nearly 12,000 peer-reviewed studies released between 1991 and 2011 that contained references to global warming in their abstracts. The team was looking for whether or not the papers addressed the cause of warming; in other words, if people are to blame.
Of those 11,944 papers, the majority didn't take a position on causation. (AGW below is shorthand for scientific term: "anthropogenic global warming.")
But considering only those papers that did suggest a cause, the consensus was overwhelming. Of those, 97.1 percent indicated support for the idea that mankind is responsible for atmospheric warming, primarily through the emission of greenhouse gas.
As time has passed — and as indicators of warming have become more apparent — the number of papers addressing the topic have increased, as have the number of papers suggesting that humans are to blame.
Click to read the article
US Economic Policies Trump Europe and Japan
A Simple Graph That Should Silence Austerians and Gold Bugs Forever
The U.S. recovery hasn't been pretty. But it's been prettier than Europe and Japan, for sure.
There are a million things to say about this graph, and I'm pretty sure that everybody who sees it will find some way to shoehorn it into their previously held opinions. So bear with me, please, as I do that very thing.
Here's what I consider the most amazing thing about this pretty amazing graph. It's not just that the U.S. had the shallowest recession, or the best recovery, among similar countries in Europe and Japan. It's this. We had the shallowest recession and the best recovery primarily because we (a) control our own currency and (b) used aggressive monetary policy to save the banks and lower interest rates while running high deficits.
And yet! Even as we smoked Europe and Japan in the race back to pre-recession GDP, we have actively debated undoing both of the things that clearly made our recovery superior. Weird conservatives have begged us to return to the gold standard at the very moment that an inflexible currency was dooming Europe. Normal conservatives have begged us to cut deficits even as austerity was dooming Europe.
Click to read the rest of the article
Tuesday, May 14, 2013
Chicago Most Corrupt City In America: Report
As our former governor prepares to head west to begin his prison sentence, Chicago was given the unfortunate title of "most corrupt" city in America in a new study by the University of Illinois at Chicago and the University of Illinois' Institute of Government and Public Affairs.
University of Illinois at Chicago professor Dick Simpson, who worked on the study, told CBS Chicago that corruption among public officials has cost the city $500 million:
It’s essentially a corruption tax on citizens who bear the cost of bad behavior — police brutality, bogus contracts, bribes, theft and ghost payrolling to name a few — and the costs needed to prosecute it.
The report cites federal data showing that, between 1976 and 2010, there were 1,531 convictions for public corruption in "the federal district dominated by Chicago," according to the Associated Press.
Since the 1970s, four of seven Illinois governors have been convicted, along with 31 members of Chicago's city council.
"The two worst crime zones in Illinois are the governor's mansion ... and the city council chambers in Chicago," Simpson, a former Chicago alderman, told the AP. "No other state can match us."
The study does point to problems in other states, however. The Central District of California, where Los Angeles is located, had 1,275 convictions during the 34 years the study analyzed, CBS reports. The Southern District of New York -- home of New York City-- was third with 1,202 convictions.
Simpson said Illinois needs to pass legislation that would allow voters to "adopt ethics reforms by referendum," and hold Chicago aldermen to higher ethical standards.
Before the report was released, Illinois Governor Pat Quinn was already trying to drum up support for an amendment to the Illinois constitution that would allow voters to put new ethics laws on the ballot. The so-called"Lincoln Amendment" would apply to any branch of state and local government, and may address issues of legislative conflicts, campaign funding issues and more.
"It's no secret that Illinois has had our fair share of ethical challenges," Sen. Annazette Collins told the AP after sponsoring the amendment.
Read the report here.
- To Serve and Collect: Chicago Politics and Police Corruption from the Lager Beer Riot to the Summerdale Scandal : 1855-1960. New York: Praeger Publishers, ...
Chicago Most Corrupt City In America: Report - Huffington Post
www.huffingtonpost.com/.../chicago-most-corrupt-city_n_1278988.html
Feb 15, 2012 – As our former governor prepares to head west to begin his prison sentence, Chicago was given the unfortunate title of "most corrupt" city in ...Chicago area called most corrupt in US. Why Rahm Emanuel is ...
www.csmonitor.com/.../Chicago-area-called-most-corrupt-in-US.-Why-R...
Feb 15, 2012 – Chicago and its suburbs have averaged 51 public corruptionconvictions per year since 1976, a new study finds. Critics say Rahm Emanuel ...Report details police corruption in Chicago | UIC News Center
https://news.uic.edu/new-report-details-police-corruption-in-chicago
Jan 17, 2013 – Police corruption in Chicago survives due to a lack of oversight and indifference from internal and external leadership, according to a new ...Chicago Called Most Corrupt City In Nation « CBS Chicago
chicago.cbslocal.com/2012/.../chicago-called-most-corrupt-city-in-nation...
Feb 14, 2012 – A former Chicago alderman turned political science professor has found the Chicago is the most corrupt city in the country.Why is Chicago so corrupt? - Slate Magazine
www.slate.com/articles/news_and.../why_is_chicago_so_corrupt.html
Dec 9, 2008 – On Tuesday, Gov. Rod Blagojevich of Illinois was taken into federal custody on corruption charges, one of which entails attempting to sell ...EXCLUSIVE: Chicago legalizes corruption | Washington Times ...
communities.washingtontimes.com/.../exclusive-chicago-legalize...Mar 31, 2013 – The Chicago City Council legalized all forms of corruption in Chicago.
Chicago is number one: For political corruption | Washington Times ...
communities.washingtontimes.com/.../middle.../chicago-number-one/Feb 16, 2012 – "Chicago ain't ready for reform." (Alderman Mathias "Paddy" Bauler 1955)
Resignation amid reports of corruption at Chicago community ...
illinoisreview.typepad.com/.../resignation-amid-reports-of-corruption-at-...
Feb 13, 2013 – The No. 2 executive of the United Neighborhood Organization (UNO) - Miguel d'Escoto - quit yesterday, eight days after it was reported that the ... The Corrupt City
www.umich.edu/~eng217/student_projects/nkazmers/corrupt1.html
"From the moment of its incorporation as a city in 1837, Chicago has been ... In fact, the origination of the gangster in Chicago is no surprise given the corrupt ...
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