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  • And you thought taxpayer propaganda was dead???

  • Chicago’s New Billboard Deal All But Signed

    Kudos to Alderman Bob Fioretti:

    A Chicago City Council committee signed off Monday on Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s latest privatization deal—even though, after nearly five hours of testimony, aldermen still didn’t quite know how it added up for taxpayers, what its shortfalls might be, or exactly which companies were included in putting it together.

    In more than a few places, they weren’t even sure what the contract said.

    “As I tried to go through these documents over the weekend, I have to admit, I don’t really have the expertise to understand them,” said Ed Burke, who’s read a few contracts in more than four decades as an alderman and attorney.  …

    As they explained, the deal involves renting out public space to a private billboard company in return for some of the proceeds. The firm, Interstate JCDecaux, will pay to put up digital billboards on 34 sites along expressways in Chicago. In return, the city will collect a guaranteed $155 million over the next twenty years, with an option to extend it for nine more.The city will also get a share of the advertising revenues—though there are pages of complex formulas and footnotes that determine the exact amount. For example, taxpayers will essentially pay back some of the millions they’re receiving up front, since over time Interstate JCDecaux will recoup the costs of building and maintaining the billboards before sharing proceeds with the city.  …

    “Was there any independent financial analysis for this particular proposal?” asked 46th Ward alderman James Cappleman.”Not directly,” said Scott.  …

    But the guaranteed payouts are far below that—the most per year is $15 million, in 2013.

    And this is where the fun starts…

    But Alderman Robert Fioretti (2nd) messed everything up by asking for a head count to see if they had a quorum.

    This was a shocking development, as committee meetings regularly proceed without anything close to half their members present, which is technically what they’re supposed to have. But under the council rules it doesn’t matter unless a member of the committee raises a stink about it.

    Such stink raising is not common.

    In fact, Carrie Austin, chair of the budget committee, wasn’t deeply irked that such a disgraceful thing was happening on her watch. She tried to turn Fioretti to stone with an infuriated stare. “I find it awful strange that you would call a quorum now, after you know so many people have left.”

    “I think it’s entirely appropriate,” Fioretti replied, plopping down in his seat as if to say, what are they going to do—map me out of my ward?

    Austin recessed the committee and, along with mayoral aides, got on the phone to round up some more warm bodies.

    A half hour later the roll was called again, and 23 aldermen were counted as present and more-or-less awake—one more than needed for a quorum, and plenty more than needed to sign off on the billboard deal. It passed 20-3, with only Fioretti, Waguespack, and Pawar opposing.

    via Chicago Reader.

    This is going to be the parking meter deal redux.  Just you wait.  We’re going to have digital advertising everywhere and the city is going to get a mere $15 million a year.  JCDecaux is going to make 4 or 5 times that.

    This is a farce.  In a few years Rahm is going to ask JCDecaux for a “favor” and they’re going to do it.  It’s all connected, and corrupt.

  • New Faces Of Meth

    Eight years ago, the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office launched a campaign called “the Faces of Meth” to address Oregon’s methamphetamine problem. The images showed the jarring effects of meth on addicts’ faces through before-and-after pictures from their arrest records.

    Rehabs.com recently followed suit with this infographic. Warning: these images are disturbing.

    via Business Insider.

    Ugh.

  • Plastic Bulb Promises Better Quality Light

    The new light source is called field-induced polymer electroluminescent Fipel technology. It is made from three layers of white-emitting polymer that contain a small volume of nanomaterials that glow when electric current is passed through them.

    The inventor of the device is Dr David Carroll, professor of physics at Wake Forest University in North Carolina. He says the new plastic lighting source can be made into any shape, and it produces a better quality of light than compact fluorescent bulbs which have become very popular in recent years.

    Wake university researcher with light The new light source is said to be twice as efficient as fluorescent bulbs”They have a bluish, harsh tint to them, ” he told BBC News, “it is not really accommodating to the human eye; people complain of headaches and the reason is the spectral content of that light doesn’t match the Sun – our device can match the solar spectrum perfectly.

    “I’m saying we are brighter than one of these curly cube bulbs and I can give you any tint to that white light that you want.”

    via BBC News.

    Sounds cool.

  • $55 Million Paid to Kids to Do Nothing

    Records provided to CNN show that $54.5 million was spent on the NRI program, mostly through the governor’s discretionary fund, which doesn’t require legislative approval.

    The only data on the program’s accomplishments come directly from the Illinois Violence Prevention Authority. The NRI states that it created more than 3,484 jobs, provided counseling for more than 3,100 children, and helped 1,175 ex-cons.  …

    NRI participants were paid $8.75 an hour, first to receive mentoring from adults, and then go out to pitch positive messages and hand out fliers in their neighborhoods.  …

    [S]tudents earned $8.75 an hour to visit the DuSable Museum of African American History and to the National Museum of Mexican Art.

    What the ??

    Why would taxpayers pay for kids to attend mentoring?  It would be like paying them to play basketball or video games or go to school.

    $54.5 million / 3,484 jobs / $8.75 / hour = 1,787 hours & $15,642.94 per person.  This is nothing more than paying kids for doing the right thing.

     

  • Who Would Rather Not Work?

    This first came up (recently at least) with the Hostess workers:

    Interviews with more than a dozen workers showed there was little sign of regret from employees who voted for the strike. They said they would rather lose their jobs than put up with lower wages and poorer benefits.

    “They’re just taking from us,” said Kenneth Johnson, 46, of Missouri. He said he earned roughly $35,000 with overtime last year, down from about $45,000 five years ago.

    “I really can’t afford to not be working, but this is not worth it. I’d rather go work somewhere else or draw unemployment,” said Johnson, a worker at Hostess for 23 years.

    via Reuters.

    Yes, old news.  But I came across this today:

    welfare cliffs

    In the recent past we noted the somewhat startling reality that “the single mom is better off earning gross income of $29,000 with $57,327 in net income & benefits than to earn gross income of $69,000 with net income and benefits of $57,045.”  …  the painful reality in America is that: for increasingly more Americans it is now more lucrative – in the form of actual disposable income – to sit, do nothing, and collect various welfare entitlements, than to work. … there is an earnings vacuum of around $40k in which US workers are perfectly ambivalent toward inputting more effort since it does not result in any additional incremental disposable income.

    via ZeroHedge.

    An interesting note is that the graphic comes from the PA Dept. of Public Health.  It’s a slide from a whole presentation about welfare’s failure.

    I recall a story from a friend of mine who used to run a mechanical company.  He had a nice lady working at the office whom he gave a raise.  She took her new pay stub and dutifully notified social services.  As a result of the modest raise she was going to lose her housing voucher.  So she had to go back to work and say, “Thank you very much but can you please take your raise back.  I need to keep my housing voucher.”

    The system is broken.  Very very broken.

  • Pregnant Hurricane Sandy Victim and 2-year-old Daughter Homeless

    A pregnant Hurricane Sandy victim was booted from her hotel room yesterday and forced to hunt for a place to stay because FEMA dropped the ball on her reservation.

    Keri Christian, 27, was living at Brooklyn’s Nu Hotel with her daughter, Serafina, 2, after the storm destroyed their Staten Island home.

    Now the eight-months-pregnant mom is couch surfing at an acquaintance’s home in Bay Ridge until she finds a new place.

    Her husband, Anthony Marotto, 41, has been in Staten Island, trying to raise their charred and flooded home from the ashes.

    “I feel like a homeless person . . . like a street rat,” said Christian, who’s expecting a boy in January. “It’s aggravating and physically demanding. I’m really pissed.”

    via NYPOST.com.

    Insanity.  If this was the Bush administration this would be national news every day.  Every day.

     

  • $45k/yr is the “New Rich”

    Implemented in 1969 to make sure upper-income Americans pay their share of taxes, the AMT has increasingly snared more middle-income Americans over the years because it was never indexed for inflation.

    During the 2011 tax year for example, the higher tax hit single taxpayers with incomes as low as $48,450 and joint filers making only $74,450.

    But millions more Americans could be subject to the AMT in their 2012 returns if Congress fails to reach a deal on the fiscal cliff before year-end. That’s because the AMT is currently scheduled to hit individuals making as little as $33,750 a year and joint filers making $45,000.

    via CNBC.

    Being married and making over $45,000 a year is the “new rich.”

    Incredible.

  • 2/3 of Millionaires Avoid 50% Tax Rate

    Two-thirds of millionaires left Britain to avoid 50p tax rate

    Almost two-thirds of the country’s million-pound earners disappeared from Britain after the introduction of the 50p top rate of tax, figures have disclosed.

    via Telegraph.

    Shhhhh…  This is a secret.  No one tell the U.S. media.  They think the “rich” will just stay and give Obama all their money.

  • A General Lack of Regard for Einstein’s Brain

    There’s a story about Einstein’s brain over at the Washington Post.  It’s your basic nature vs. nurture about how this guy got to have this unique piece of gray matter between his ears.

    It appears quite a few Wash. Post readers don’t think much of Ol’ Albert or his accomplishments.  One particular genius wrote:

    He didn’t invent, or come up with, relativity. That has existed since time began … he was the person that first -realized- it existed and then fashioned working mathematical relationships to describe it. If it wasn’t Albert Einstein, it would have been someone else that first put 2 and 2 together ….

    Brilliant!!  Because yes, yes, the work Einstein did is really nothing more than 2 + 2.

    This leads another commenter to write something I’ve thought for a long time:

    So amusing to read the pronouncments of our typical modern day (Obongo supporting) clueless clowns with a little knowlege passing judgment on one of mankind’s greatest thinkers. Utterly underserved confidence in the most meager of abilities has been the only discernible triumph of the US liberal dominated dysfunctional education system in the last 50 years.

    via The Washington Post.

    The combination of arrogance and ignorance is very dangerous and  has infected a significant portion of the population.  People — you know who you are — have become so enamored with themselves that they either cannot or simply refuse to see real genius in others.

    I’ve taken four college semesters of calculus ending with differential equations.  These classes would not begin to cover the mathematics that Einstein did without the assistance of a computer or even a hand-held calculator.  To imply that just anyone would come along and discover 2 + 2 shows just how little the average person walking down the street actually knows about math.

    It’s very very sad.  Ignorance is truly bliss; but at least years ago people knew enough to keep their trap shut when they didn’t know anything.