Fish Fear Me

Meet My Share of the Pork

My local city has submitted a list of 20 projects totaling $28 million and some change as "ready to go" projects for the stimulus bill working its way through Congress right now. Most of those are sewer and water projects and I don't know where those stand. The largest single one is for an upgrade to an intersection that is only a few blocks from my house and that I use daily to go to and from work. Here's what it looks like today:

Here's what the city would like it to look like:

Purty. The total budget for the project is about $18 million. The city has already spent $3 million on right of way acquisitions and has another $5.9 million in federal funds already(which irks me as it is. Why are the feds giving us any money for a state/local bridge?). They were looking for state funding for the rest before our $5 billion dollar state shortfall probably put an end to that. Enter Uncle Sam again and the American Recovery and Reinvestment act of 2009. It's not a done deal yet, however this is listed as one of the projects still in the running at this point by the Minnesota DOT. They are asking for an additional $9 million from the feds.

Here's the deal. I would love to see this project go through at some point in time. This area is a royal pain in the ass to travel through during rush hour some days and this is a great solution to that and to relieve congestion on state highway 7. But do we really need it now? Are things so congested that even in tough economic times this is a priority? The answer to me is clearly no on both counts.

The city says it will create 200 jobs, the state says 250. Maybe those jobs do make it worth doing now anyway, but I would be more comfortable about that if we were not pawning off the cost of it onto future generations. It seems to me that government should be tightening its belt and not going whole hog, so to speak, on more spending.

We've had recessions before and we will have them again. We should let the excesses of the past be wrung out of the economy, as painful as that can be, and if anything just help people cope with that. Adding a trillion dollars of more debt onto the backs of our children is not the honorable way to go. We should suck it up and put off projects like that bridge until we can afford to pay for them ourselves, however worthy they may be overall.

Maybe if we stopped sending money to DC so it can be doled back to us after a little asskissing lobbying we could afford stuff like this on our own.

Heh

I mentioned the Large Hadron Collider the other day and courtesy of this comment at Protein Wisdom I can send you to a couple of webcams of the site. Be sure to give it a few seconds so they load properly.

Very cool.

But...But...

Say it isn't so:

The capital flew into a bit of a tizzy when, on his first full day in the White House, President Obama was photographed in the Oval Office without his suit jacket. There was, however, a logical explanation: Mr. Obama, who hates the cold, had cranked up the thermostat.

“He’s from Hawaii, O.K.?” said Mr. Obama’s senior adviser, David Axelrod, who occupies the small but strategically located office next door to his boss. “He likes it warm. You could grow orchids in there.”

I'm sure I'm not the only one who remembers this from the campaign:

"We can't drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times ... and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK," Obama said.

"That's not leadership. That's not going to happen," he added.

I have no problems with most presidential privileges, but that one is going to stick in my craw if he is going to start throwing carbon taxes around. Those on top of what it takes just to heat my humble home to 68 degrees this coldest January in the Twin Cities in many years. The month is likely to end as the first since 1994 without a "January thaw", defined as two consecutive days at 32 degrees or more. It may also be only the fourth or fifth January since records started being kept where we didn't get even one day at 32 degrees or more.

Remember this when we are told we must sacrifice for Global Warming.

Things That Make You Go Hmmm, cont.

Nation’s chief intelligence officer resigns

By Pam Benson
CNN National Security Producer
WASHINGTON (CNN) — Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell
has resigned effective immediately, according to DNI Spokesman Ross Feinstein.

Feinstein said Tuesday that Lt. Gen. Ronald Burgess, the number three
official in the DNI’s office, will serve as acting director until a new one is
confirmed.

Earlier this month, President Obama nominated Retired Admiral Dennis
Blair to be his new chief of intelligence. Blair’s confirmation hearing was
held last week. The Senate Intelligence Committee is expected to approve
Blair’s nomination as early as Wednesday, sending it to the full Senate for a
final vote.

McConnell had been expected to remain as the DNI until Blair was in
place. No reason was given for his sudden departure.

You would think that he would just sit tight for a few more days until Blair is available to replace him. It could be any number of things, but it makes me wonder if he was given an order that he felt he could not in good conscience carry out. I'm sure we'll get the scoop from all those top-notch Washington journalists shortly.

Change You Can Self-Deceive In

From the new White House Blog:

In his first interview with an Arab television station, President Barack Obama offered a bold change to America's relations with the Muslim world.

"My job is to communicate to the American people that the Muslim world is filled with extraordinary people who simply want to live their lives and see their children live better lives," President Obama told Al Arabiya. "My job to the Muslim world is to communicate that the Americans are not your enemy."

How is that any kind of change, let alone "bold"? Time and time again President Bush made it clear to Americans and Muslims around the world that it was the murderous extremists that we were fighting and not Islam as a whole. Here he is nine days after 9/11 in an address to Congress:

I also want to speak tonight directly to Muslims throughout the world.  We respect your faith.  It's practiced freely by many millions of Americans, and by millions more in countries that America counts as friends.  Its teachings are good and peaceful, and those who commit evil in the name of Allah blaspheme the name of Allah.  (Applause.)  The terrorists are traitors to their own faith, trying, in effect, to hijack Islam itself.  The enemy of America is not our many Muslim friends; it is not our many Arab friends.  Our enemy is a radical network of terrorists, and every government that supports them.  (Applause.)

I'm sure I can scrounge up dozens more examples where he said the same thing. The American people do not need to be told this, we've heard it constantly the past seven years. It doesn't hurt for the Muslim world to hear it again, but I don't think it will appease them any more than when Bush said it.

What they want are deeds, not words, and deeds that aren't going to fly with most of the American public. Start with the death of Israel and work your way down. I'm all for President Obama taking a fresh look at our relations with the Muslim and Arab worlds and working on an Israeli-Palestinian peace, but I'm not encouraged if the new administration is going to start it from Fantasy Land. You can't get there from there.

P.S.-And where the heck have the White House briefing transcripts gone? For all of the hell Bush took for having the least transparent administration EVER!™, at least they managed to post briefing and event transcripts quickly and efficiently. Perhaps it has never occurred to the new folks that people might want to see what the MSM filters out.

Oh, wait.

The Ultimate Peter Principle

I have pretty much dismissed the lawsuits against operating the Large Hadron Collider as doomsday quackery that is not worthy of serious discussion. Even after this little tidbit from Fox News I still think that's the case:

Still worried that the Large Hadron Collider will create a black hole that will destroy the Earth when it's finally switched on this summer?

Um, well, you may have a point.

Three physicists have reexamined the math surrounding the creation of microscopic black holes in the Switzerland-based LHC, the world's largest particle collider, and determined that they won't simply evaporate in a millisecond as had previously been predicted.

Rather, Roberto Casadio of the University of Bologna in Italy and Sergio Fabi and Benjamin Harms of the University of Alabama say mini black holes could exist for much longer — perhaps even more than a second, a relative eternity in particle colliders, where most objects decay much faster.

Under such long-lived conditions, it becomes a race between how fast a black hole can decay — and how fast it can gobble up matter to grow bigger and prevent itself from decaying.

The physicists go on to say that "the growth of black holes to catastrophic size does not seem possible." Alrighty then, I'll keep making payments on the mortgage. Though there is this to ponder at the end of that article:

If the worst comes to pass, and there's now a slightly greater chance that it might, at least it might explain why we've never heard from extraterrestrial civilizations: Maybe they built Large Hadron Colliders of their own.

Hmmm. Maybe that "rising to your level of incompetence" thing is more universal than I thought.

More: This post is tongue-in-cheek, but John the Scientist has a very good post that points out some very relevant issues about some of the anti-LHC crowd. It is a long and worthwhile piece that is helpful for non-scientists like myself and I encourage people to read through the whole thing when they have the time.

I think our media is too quick to lend credibility to scientists who are working outside their area of expertise and we the public are also too often gullible when we hear the term "scientist". We sometimes seem to forget that scientists are people too, and subject to the same human imperfections as the rest of us. A healthy skepticism is always in order, and if that is met with hysteria and marketing efforts(see anthropogenic global warming) then the skepticism should be doubled.

Not Surprising

Apparently the translation for "dumbass" in french is "Chirac":

Former French president Jacques Chirac was rushed to hospital after being mauled by his own 'clinically depressed' pet dog.

The 76-year-old statesman was savaged by his white Maltese dog - which suffers from frenzied fits and is being treated with anti-depressants.

The animal, named Sumo, had become increasingly violent over the past years and was prone to making 'vicious, unprovoked attacks', Chirac's wife Bernadette said.

As sad as it is, some animals should just be put down, but it's really no surprise that Chirac doesn't have the stones to put down an animal "prone to making 'vicious, unprovoked attacks'".

Saddam at least arranged to send Chirac's pals billions in blood money. I have no idea what his excuse is for tolerating Sumo.

Oh, Crap

Not a good sign. President Obama and/or his aides have screwed up their first application of anti-batshit vaccine right off the...er, bat.

Ken noted the flub in yesterday's oath of office and jokingly said that it would bring out the crazies. It turns out that enough serious people were worried about that that they actually did redo it today in the White House. Fine, I didn't give a damn in the first place. Where they screwed up though was here:

The president said he did not have his Bible with him, but that the oath was binding anyway.

You just know that somebody is going to pick that up and run with it. Right from the start a certain segment of the bible thumping community is going to look at President Obama as illegitimate. No big deal in and of itself, because most people think that's ridiculous, and rightly so. It's blood in the water though, and no matter how small it's a really early unforced error.

It will be stupid, but that's our political culture and it's the same type of thing that cumulatively was used so effectively against President Bush.

Welcome to the political environment you at least tolerated, Mr. President. Good luck.

Not Exactly Hopey Changey...

...but I think this from doubleplusundead is the line of the day so far:

"Byrd was apparently stunned to realize that Obama wasn't there to serve lunch."

It turned out that Sen. Byrd did not have to leave today's luncheon because of a health issue, unlike Sen. Kennedy, though that was the early report.

And did Sen. Dodd's wife really say this?

Dodd told FOX News Kennedy "bellowed something like 'I'm fine! I'm fine!"  Dodd's wife said, "He looked better. You know the Irish."

The Irish in me was offended, but got shouted down by the German, Italian, English, and French parts of me that said "shut up and have another drink". So that's what we're doing. Bastards.

Inauguration Day Thoughts

-First and foremost, thank God that it went without a hitch. My paranoia about large public events has faded considerably since 9/11, but it still haunts me a little. As far as I could tell(I watched the FOX coverage), the ceremony and all of the crowd support was very well done, as was fitting for a moment in history such as this. Thank you and a job well done to the organizers and all of the people who worked to make today's events a success.

-I was going to do a drinking game for the event and reconsidered over the weekend. That was partly because I needed to get some stuff done today, but mostly out of respect for what today represents and for now President Obama. Today was an historic day and the peaceful transition of power in this country is too sacred and precious to treat it with mockery. I do however, reserve the right to come up with one for his first SOTU address.

-It occurred to me that this is the twelfth Presidential Inauguration of my life and the first that I have ever watched live on TV. For the previous eleven I was either in school or in the office. Wait, the first I was probably more interested in a Tonka Truck.

-Kudos go to both the incoming and outgoing presidents and their staffs for such a graceful and dignified transition.

-I care not one bit about the oath flub or who was responsible. It just does not matter.

-This past week I've done a lot of thinking about the last eight years and how very differently things turned out compared to what everyone expected when President Bush took office. I'm sure that President Obama has a script in mind for the four or eight years and I am just as sure that it will not play out exactly that way. Events have a way of overcoming presidents and as much as some may try to wish it away, there are people and nations who feel it is in their interest to derail any American president no matter the party. President of the United States is one of the most difficult jobs in the world, one that does not come with a crystal ball, and I'm certain that President Obama and his political supporters will soon gain a new appreciation of that fact.

-I wonder if any of the people who slandered Bush and Cheney as fascists and dictators over the years are ashamed of their rhetoric today. They should be, but my guess is that they are not that self-aware.

More: It looks like things didn't go quite so smoothly yesterday for thousands of ticket holders:

At least 4,000 people with coveted blue or purple tickets to the presidential inauguration were blocked from entering the U.S. Capitol grounds yesterday because too many tickets were distributed, entry procedures bogged down and security officials were overwhelmed by surging crowds at several gates.

I would not expect any event that was so large to go perfectly. That said, there are enough anecdotes today about many people waiting for hours and then not getting in to make me think that some people dropped the ball. Nothing happened and so this will likely fade away, but it seems to me that this is a serious security and safety issue that should not be ignored. Crowds are dangerous and it appears that the organizers, and the crowds, probably got a bit lucky yesterday.