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Ancient Links Misc Politics Trips

Stuff and things

Chris’s landlord experience makes me suspect this is true.

A comic Dad will appreciate: Dog washing, and a gloomy story lost in the convention coverage: crackdown and intimidation of protesters, the reporters speak.

I guess it’s time to dress this place up. Thanks for linking to it Chris! 100 Excellent Free WordPress Themes
Zombie cinema, an RPG like board game?
A cool tick icon

On wanting friends close; she captures it perfectly.
Streetcars: what they do and what we wish they did.
If we plan on traveling to England, this post has a lot of advice.

Sarah McLachlan is putting out two new songs. U want me 2, sold via Netwerk or itunes.
Don’t Give Up On Us
is coming soon
River is one I don’t recognize and should investigate…

Obama’s legislative accomplishments, if you’re curious or have bought the “he’s an empty shirt” attack.

Categories
Fresno Gift Coordination Politics

Parking Downtown

This is sparked by some interesting history and background on parking in Fresno from Jerry Duncan on Mindhub.

Subject: [MindHub] Downtown Parking Reality 101

There has been some discussion going on recently regarding the cost of parking downtown. For those interested in learning the reality of how it really works, I offer these comments.

First a little history. Before the current administration took office in 2001, parking downtown really was a mess. There was a serious shortage in the number of spaces (there were only 5,680 stalls total in downtown) and what little the City had was filthy and unsafe. The structures were covered
in graffiti and none of the elevators or escalators worked. The parking meters on the streets had been removed and replaced with two hour of free parking (supposedly to bring people back to downtown). When I attended then State Senator Jim Costa’s Downtown Task Force meetings on Downtown
Revitalization in 2000, we found out that this “free” parking was being used primarily by downtown employees who would park on the street, leave work every two hours and move their cars.

The number one complaint we heard then about downtown was that there was no parking and they were right. In addition, parking rates were so low that no private parking structures could be built because they wouldn’t pencil out. When the current administration took office the downtown parking problem became one of our first priorities for downtown. As Chairman of the Fresno Redevelopment Agency, I worked very hard with the Mayor to develop a plan to solve this problem. We knew that without an adequate supply of clean, well maintained and affordable parking, the revitalization of Downtown Fresno would never happen.

The execution of this plan over the previous seven years has resulted in some pretty remarkable results. First, since 2001 the City has added 3,600 additional spaces of parking downtown in parking lots and parking structures. Did you know the new Convention Center parking structure cost
almost as much as the baseball stadium?

Second, because we raised overall parking rates to a still very competitive and reasonable level building private parking structures now made economic sense and 2,900 new stalls have been added by private companies. It is important to note that these private parking structures were the first ones built downtown in over 40 years and didn’t cost the taxpayers one cent.

There are currently 12,180 parking spaces available in downtown Fresno (an increase of 115% since 2001). Of the 12,180, 4,280 are privately owned and 7,900 are operated by the City of Fresno.

The parking fund, which operates as a separate cost center, is currently running a $5 million deficit which is currently being subsidized by all the taxpayers in Fresno, even those who don’t come downtown. The recent increases are part of a 10 year plan to try to break even. It has been the
City’s objective to reasonably pass on as much of the cost of providing parking downtown to the people who actually use it.

Even with the increases, Downtown Fresno is still one of lowest cost places to park in North America. Don’t believe me, look here: link.

It was interesting to me that someone suggested we place parking meters in other shopping areas around town to raise money. The reality is that unlike Downtown Fresno merchants, those merchants who are not located in downtown are paying for their customers parking. The cost of providing “free” parking to their customers is passed on by their landlords. If you shop at any shopping center outside of downtown, you are paying for the cost of the parking when you buy something because the business owner is passing on this cost in the price of their goods or services.

If the cost of lower parking is that important to the business owners downtown, they can provide their own parking (it is a requirement of development everywhere except downtown Fresno) or form a parking assessment district to raise funds to lower the cost of parking in city lots. I’m sure
the City would be willing to look at reducing the parking cost by the amount they raise.

Jerry Duncan

Recent semi-related links:
Livable streets report
Street design goals
Thinking about parking (DC)
Gas and the suburbs
Midnight oil
Suitcase bike
CA High speed rail analysis

Categories
Politics

Masculinity and other cool quotes

A great quote from Hilzoy:

And besides, this all plays into a pretty ludicrous conception of masculinity, according to which George Bush’s swaggering and bluster are supposed to show that he’s manly, while — well, something, though what exactly is never clear, is supposed to show that Obama is not. If I truly thought that masculinity was anything like the sneering, bullying caricature that people try to foist off on us every four years at about this time, I’d either take a vow of celibacy right now or spend some serious effort trying to discover whether it’s possible to become gay by sheer force of will.

The whole post is good, but I was tickled by her concluding paragraph (above).

Afterward, I found a great post from Kameron Hurley about finding happiness and fearing it. Here’s one (of many) good paragraphs:

I worry that happiness is a dangerous thing. I worry that it’s not something we should strive for, but just something you get periodically, a lull between the long stretches of darkness, like the short, sharp Alaskan Summer. Those three months of intense, gorgeous, beautiful life and sunshine that make the 8 months of winter worth it.

Categories
Board Games Misc Politics Roleplaying

Lots of clutter

RPGThoughts, a new blog.

I bookmarked this for the post’s name… I need to see what it is. Dr Who Torchwood and BSG

How cities change over time

I am TRex, a political humor blog.
Thick political newsfeed
Cheryl’s Mewsings: a cool sci-fi fandom site.

Levi is working on a SotC/Perfect 20 cross
Tokyo Rain RPG developer’s log. Interesting discussion about emulating the books. (The books also sound cool…)
Fantastic Dice Bag.

(Investigate): Bacchus’ Banquet Playtest Review by Shannon Appelcline (5/5).
Wordfare Playtest Review by Tom Vasel (5/3).
(Read) El Capitn (2007)
An interesting sounding expansion to Mare Nostrum: Mythology.
AT-43 company manager

Categories
Politics

Sometimes you just have to shout

Megan has a great post about some beliefs, well and angrily expressed. The title gives it away: I should let it drop…, but it’s well worth reading.

Categories
Politics

Interviewing a Hedge Fund Trader

A talk with a hedge fund trader about the sub-prime mess, black box trading, and currency. It’s fascinating– the interviewer is no expert on the subject, so it’s much easier to follow than most discussions about the subject. (via Ezra Klein.)

Categories
Politics

Hilzoy is back!

She has a great post up today about acknowledging and appreciating the recent decline in violence in Iraq. Her article is great, but I’m particularly fond of her example beginning at fourth.

Categories
Politics

Sebastian on torture

Sebastian has a good post, On Torture Hypotheticals–Conservative Perspective. I agree with him completely. Only if the government was perfect might it be trusted with selecting the perfect degree of force to extract information.

In the real world, innocent people are convicted and spend years in prison before their release. If months of trial and investigation can’t guarantee the right result, why should we trust someone acting in a moment, under pressure, to get it right?

The other red herring? Under the hypothetical, there’s still no reason for torture to be legal. The torturer will, in good conscience, extract the information… and immediately be pardoned for saving the lives of thousands. Despite being able to imagine such an extreme corner case [and despite the convenient assumption of perfect knowledge], I think we can keep laws against torture on the books.


A good discussion has sprung from Sebastian’s first post: here are further posts on the subject. Demand side Torture (by Publius), More on Torture Hypotheticals (by Sebastian), and Choose your own adventure (by Katherine).

Categories
Politics

Padilla and the constitution

From Hilzoy’s post, Jose Padilla And Lowell Jacoby. As always, it’s best to read the whole thing.

rather than dwelling on the verdict, I want to focus instead on a memo (pdf) that Marty Lederman posted at Balkinization a few days ago. It’s the single most shocking document concerning this administration’s attitude towards the Constitution that I have seen thus far. It’s from Lowell Jacoby, Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, and it is an explanation of why Jose Padilla should not be allowed access to counsel. Bear in mind that the Sixth Amendment holds that “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall (…) have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.” Of course, Padilla was not at that time charged with any crime, which is why one might have thought that the Fifth Amendment might have been relevant: “No person shall be (…) deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” Possibly there are exceptions for prisoners of war, but Padilla was arrested at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago, not in the mountains of Afghanistan.

Categories
Politics

Perfect logic

A means not A. No, really.

I’m mocking this commentary from today’s paper: BONNIE ERBE: Illegal immigration causes hidden inflation. Here’s why. In the middle of the article, he approvingly quotes a January 2005 Bear Stearns article that says (his direct quote):

The growing extralegal system in the United States has distorted economic statistics and government budget projections. The stealth labor force has enhanced many of the economic releases that investors follow closely. Payroll numbers understate true job growth and inflation has been artificially dampened by this seemingly endless supply of low-wage workers.

He then concludes his article, “Now we have another, this time financial, equation to contemplate.

Unfettered illegal immigration boosts inflation while hiding the effects from the general public.”

Except his conclusion exactly contradicts the report he’s relying on. I wonder if he even read the article that he’s relying on to support his point? The rest of his article is free-form supply and demand via personal experience; he supposes that more workers means more resource demand… which would mean higher inflation. His whole point depends on that correlation… which is undercut by the only article he bothered to cite.

Better pundits please.