– It’s sad that there needs to be an app for school lockdowns.
– I like seeing what The New York Times thinks of Seattle developments. It’s very provincial of me, but I don’t care. They are rather fawning over Jeff Bezos.
– The Many, Many Jobs That Won’t Earn You Enough to Live in Your City
– I forgot to mention it in the post on Friday, but this editorial in the Ballard News-Tribune was what set me off thinking about a city post-Seattle Times.
– I have jury duty starting tomorrow in Seattle. Since it’s city, it’ll only be a misdemeanor, so I don’t anticipate it being very long. They said there would be WiFi in the waiting room, so I’m hoping y’all don’t notice anything, but my posting schedule may be a bit different than usual.
Instead of fawning all over Amazon, the NYT ought to be viewing with some concern the fact that SLU was once Seattle’s “Multimedia Gulch”…and home to two fine newspapers–one of which has been reduced to a meager web presence and the other of which is already dead but refuses to admit it.
One rather obvious occupation not listed in citation #3: Police officer. Not a few Seattle cops with families are commuting to work from places like Mt. Vernon because they can’t afford to live in the city that employs them. No wonder some of them seem a little grouchy.
@2 I’m not sure if you were being facetious or not but starting salary for a Seattle cop is $67.7K that’s more than enough to live in Seattle using the 1/3 of income measure. I could find a decent 2BR in almost any part of the city for under $1800/month.
I don’t begrudge the SPD their salary but it more than adequate to live in Seattle.
# 2, 3 – Police rarely exist only on their basic paycheck. They have all sorts of extra sources of income: basic overtime, plus conducting traffic schools for violators, serving to direct traffic at construction projects (paid by the contractor), etc.
I’m not belittling the police, I think most of them more than earn their pay. I just don’t think that whether or not they can live in Seattle on their paycheck isn’t the issue – although a bigger house and more yard might be desirable to them further out.
With wildfires burnimg out of control in Yosemite, I got curious about the air assets available. According to the USFS, the cupboard of high capacity air tankers available is ok, with 26 of various types. Counting days off and others down for maintenance, it’s even less available. The blog below did not count state assets or Single Engine Air Tankers.
http://fireaviation.com/2013/0.....t-20-2013/
Evergreen Aviation a few months ago was awarded a Call When Needed contract for their 747. Now that it’s needed, it’s not ready. In between the expired contract and the new one, they removed two engines and the plane is due for a C-Check. I wonder if the USFS rules need to be upgraded when awarding tanker contracts. One drawback to converting 747’s, DC-10’s, BAE-146’s, and MD-80s for fire suppression, is since they require more people to operate, they are more expensive to operate. Although the 747 has some advantages. The tanks with the dire retardant are on the main deck, could put some of the space in the hump to good use, housing some of the support staff.
Also, this may be the last year that the Martin Mars up on Vancouver Island may be available. One of the two has been retired, and the other, is on contract, but the Liberal Government in Victoria, did not renew the contract.
http://www.albernivalleynews.c.....obile=true
By the way conservative trolls, the BC Liberals are a center-right party. They got the majority in Victoria, with the NDP in opposition, and a Green and an Independent.
Also, this may be the last year that the Martin Mars up on Vancouver Island may be available. One of the two has been retired, and the other, is on contract, but the Liberal Government in Victoria, did not renew the contract.
http://www.albernivalleynews.c.....obile=true
By the way conservative trolls, the BC Liberals are a center-right party. They got the majority in Victoria, with the NDP in opposition, and a Green and an Independent.
Interesting article out of Baltimore comparing their light rail network to San Francisco. Of course it’s not really a good comparison, and the question it starts off with, asking what’s a Baltimore streetcar doing on San Francisco’s Market Street is misleading. It’s an ex-Philadelphia PCC painted in Baltimore Transit Company colors.
http://www.baltimorebrew.com/2.....hat-works/
Good luck with the jury duty. I hope you are realeased without a stain on your character.
I wasn’t that fortunate.
While I was looking for info on the Martin Mars air tanker, I stumbled on this article about an initiative campaign in British Columbia to decriminalize simple possession of Marijuana. There reason, is that police in BC are investigating cases of simple possession at twice the national rate per 100,000 people. I saw a question involving decriminalization come up in the provincial election, the Premier said it was a Federal issue, the NDP did so too, but said they would welcome a fight with Ottawa over it.
http://www.avtimes.net/sensibl.....n-1.597153
Initiative campaigns are unique to BC when it comes to Canada. Other provinces, and sometimes the Federal government might suit legislation to the voters via referendum, but BC is the only province that allows voters to initiate it, and to recall legislators. On both, they have been successful only once. The Harmonized Sales Tax referendum in 2011, and in 1996, a legislator resigned hours ahead of signatures being certified. The hurdles are high. Need signatures equal to 10% of the registered voters in each district, in 90 days for an initiative. I believe that they also are required to have a witness to the signature.
http://www.elections.bc.ca/ind.....nitiative/
# 5: 747’s can be bought for cheep prices these days, but you run into maintenance problems. The airframe has it’s life expectancy an scheduled checks, and a “C” check can last a couple of months. And don’t forget that the engines and landing gear have their own life expectancy, and once you reach that you have to completely refurbish or replace – which can cost well more than 1/3 of the airframe costs. That’s why 747’s are making up the bulk of the aircraft being flowin in to Victorvill and other spots in the desert for scrapping. Oh, and any conversion job (passenger to freighter, or in this case passenger or freightor to water transport vehicle) would require the better part of a year to complete including test flights and certification.
11)The impression I hot from Fire Aviation and Wildfire Today, is that it will be 45 days for the C-check on the Evergreen 747, provided nothing is found. The earliest it could be ready is the end of September. The Rim Fire in Yosemite will have done maximum damage by then. Backing up their people on the ground, CalFire has sent in S-2s and Helos. Some Federal assets have been brought to bear, including a C-130 from the military and a DC-10. They have been using the latter as much as possible.
http://wildfiretoday.com/2013/.....semite-np/
Meanwhile, the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission is hurrying to move as much water to resevoirs down the aquaduct and in the city, as ash is approaching Hetch Hetchy.
http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.c.....ch-hetchy/
Roger Rabbit Isn’t Sick or Dead, Just Blocked
I haven’t been able to access HA from my home computer since last Wednesday. (I’m using a library computer right now.) I get an error message saying “Google Chrome cannot connect to Horsesass.org.” This happened about an hour after I posted on Sound Politics — I don’t know if there’s any connection, it’s probably a coincidence, but is it possible someone over there lifted my IP address and used it to block my HA access? Can they do that? I have no idea how this stuff works.
Anyway, if I don’t make it to DL tomorrow, will someone please tell Darryl I’m blocked from HA and ask him if there’s a way he can check on that and unblock me? If this doesn’t get fixed, Roger Rabbit’s posting career at HA is over.
13)One of the many uses Libraries have these days.
It’s been a busy weekend for news.
Seattle Tiems ran an article about Seattle’s skyrocketing rents. With the median rent pushing $1,500 (or something like that) the $15 minimum wage proposal may become moot because no employer will be able to pay less than that and still get workers. Especially with many employers going to part-time to evade Obamacare, when a job doesn’t even pay rent, they’re not going to find anyone who can (or will) fill that job position.
In other news, it looks like the U.S. is getting set to bomb Syria for using chemical weapons against civilians.
And it appears the Treasury will hit the debt ceiling in mid-October. The chances of Democrats caving in to Tea Party demands to defund Obamacare are zero. So I think we’re heading for a budget impasse, a government shutdown, and a Treasury default. The only way that can be avoided is if some of the cooler heads in the GOP (are there any left?) decide to vote with Democrats to pass a budget and raise the debt ceiling.
Wildfires are burning up California again. This happens every summer. When are people going to learn not to build houses in areas that burn like clockwork every year? Humans are stupid. There’s a reason you don’t find rabbit warrens on those hillsides. Unlike you stupid humans, we rabbits learn from experience.
Several more Second Amendment Events over the last few days. How much more proof will it take to convince people that letting every Tom, Dick, and Harry pack heat is a horrid idea? And that if we can’t get the Rightwing Court to rethink its interpretation of the Second Amendment, then maybe we should think about rewording the Second Amendment in some material respects?
15) With California, it could be the cost of housing in the SF Bay Area and Los Angeles. I was wondering, it seems CalFire is in a tough spot. Protect homes near the fire, or concentrate on Hetch Hetchy. Transmission lines have been hit, and cannot be repaired until the fire is out.
SF needs a backup for Hetch Hetchy, I was wondering, once NIMBYs are pacified, what’s the offshore wind potential off San Francisco? May even have to look into desalination plants as a backup water source.
@13. The obvious questions.
Have you tried other browsers?
Do you get the same behavior from
http://www.haseattle.com/
vs
http://horsesass.org/
Have you erased your chrome cookies/cache?
@ 13 RR
Clear your browser cache. If that doesn’t work, switch to Opera.
Thats what I’ve been using for years. Has a good email client, and it has some pretty cool customization features.
It does have quirks, there are a few links that it somehow doesn’t recognize and Huffington loads so slow on it I’m wondering if they don’t have some little backroom deal going on with the other Browser companies, ALA M$. But it’s always worked for me
Syria:
It would appear our President is gearing up to deploy military action in Syria as a result of the Syrian military using poison gas upon its people.
Use of poison gas is a violation of international law. But the USA is not the world’s policeman.
I’m happy to be wrong, but unless we’re able to go in to Syria and remove all the poison gas, there’s really not much the USA should or can do.
I’m reminded of my yoga instructor when she tells me/us that sometimes it is better to stay uncomfortable in a pose to understand the discomfort.
I’ll probably not live to see it, but one day we might learn to not get involved in the terrible problems of other nations just because we can and think we should; even when our intentions are pure.
The birfer komb-over krackpot goes krazy-nutso:
‘Obama is out to get me!’: Donald Trump claims the President is behind $40 million lawsuit against his ‘phony’ university that ‘falsely’ promised to make students rich
Sounds just like our goto krackpot for laughs around here – puddywhacko..
Did y’all know that homelessness has decreased by 17 percent in the last decade… Who knew?
http://www.theatlantic.com/bus.....ca/279050/
Both Bush and Obama get credit.. Federal gubmint programs those two initiated get the credit.. Not any surge in private religious charity that I can see.
But of course the krackpot kooks in the kongress are working hard at reversing the progress.. They want to take food out of the mouths of children, Republican children even – of course they don’t give a damn if more people are forced to the streets.
Here is something totally different…
Here is more loonacy. Maybe HA’s unemployed ASSHole moron will be declared a “person”. Jury still out.
i.e. a lunatic, JOKIII-style whackjob outfit tailored for krackpots like puddyidiot.
Weapon of mass jawb kweashun anyone?
Why do klownservative states want to test welfare recipients for drugs?
Simple – they hate poor people.
Well, after 30 large expended, 400 folks tested..
12 come up positive for drugs..
Money well spent..
Interesting poll released by BART on a tax or bond measure chance. 70% range on most questions, except for if it went to pay increases, that only got 69%.
http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/.....750486.php
Interesting, New Jersey Transit is going to develop a localized microgrid, to protect it from filuture piwer disruptions.
http://www.railwayage.com/inde.....channel=55
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and U.S. Secretary of Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz announced plans for “NJ TransitGrid” Monday, Aug. 26, 2013, to make passenger rail infrastructure in the Garden State more self-sustaining and flexible in the face of future emergencies.
Kind of redundant, but if two of us know a thing about Buzzfeed well, Piddles can dismiss us both and still keep up his ignorant act.
So “Life” propagandists Live Action post to a website and Piddles laps it up.
Where’s James O’Keefe these days?
@27, I meant future power distribution.
As for Gov. Christie supporting this, he has a mixed record on passenger rail. Although the impression I get from people on a railfan board that live there, he made the right call on the Hudson River tunnel. It had some drawbacks, including terminating at a stub annex to Penn Station. What Amtrak is working on now, will be able to have run-through trains, which are needed.
So?
Puddy sees it’s a rude awakening for libtards! Conservatives posting on libtard web sites!
@30
Well, you’ve been posting here for years and it’s just as easy to smell your bullshit as a “We called clinic X and they broke the law” video.
Did Life Action Network turn the raw video over to law enforcement, that well know “lefty’ group of people? Any charges? Funny. It’s much easier to get Piddles and the “Fetus” cult to believe.
Buzzfeed is liberal? Well only in the sense that it tracks internet traffic and aggregates topics from Twitter and other social media where the demographic is younger computer users. How’s it bode for the future of conservatism that conservative sections of Reddit take their boards private so as not to get a butt hurt from all the “Liberals” laughing at them?
“GOP! Dying faster than new ones are born since 1992!”